


After the Fall

by chrissie0707



Category: Supernatural
Genre: African Dream Root, Angst, Brother Feels, Gen, Hurt Dean, Hurt/Comfort, Worried Bobby
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-28
Updated: 2016-06-28
Packaged: 2018-07-18 21:16:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 51,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7330969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chrissie0707/pseuds/chrissie0707
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>WIP, set between 5.10 and 5.11. Already playing hurt, already about as vulnerable as they've ever been, Sam and Dean take on a seemingly routine hunt that reopens old wounds as they're forced to reexamine some of the decisions they've made over the past few years. Lots of language, whump and angst.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Built from a group of ten prompts, which will be posted at the conclusion of the story, and takes place between "Abandon All Hope" and "Sam, Interrupted."
> 
> This story is still a WIP, but in the home stretch. I'll post chapters here every couple of days.

There's blood, everywhere.

It's caked in his hair, matting the short strands together, and staining his clothes. It's stuck in the creases of his knuckles and wicked dark and stubborn around the edges of his fingernails.

Some of it is his, but most of it is not, and no matter how much he scrubs and soaps and scours, the blood won't come out in the wash.

Dean's no stranger to blood. Kind of comes with the territory, actually. He's intimately familiar with its power to heal or bind, or blast a winged son of a bitch back to the homeland. Its power to taint, corrupt and poison.

This is a way of life that, one way or another, is built upon the blood that's shed, and he's long grown used to the thick, indescribable scent of it. To the warm, metallic tang of his own flooding his mouth or spilling from his lips. To the feel of it drying tacky and uncomfortable on his skin, pulling tight on the fine hairs of his arms with even the smallest of movements. To bending over the small, dirty sink of a dark, nondescript motel bathroom scrubbing at thick crimson drips with a rag soaked in peroxide while Sam paces out in the main room, hip-deep into the lecture about recklessness he seems to have forgotten he memorized from an old one of Dad's.

Dean knows his way around the aftermath of a battle, knows what that can look like, in victory, and in loss.

Usually, the blood left behind is faceless, if it has come from a victim; or is worn as some morbid badge of triumph, if the slayed is a monster of some kind. Sometimes it's both, in the case of any demon they've ever dispatched with the knife.

Despite his best efforts, oftentimes if the blood on Dean's hands isn't his own, it's his little brother's. More often than he'd liked. Minor, inconsequential cuts and scrapes here and there, on an almost daily basis, but sometimes it's worse.

Seeping through carefully placed bandages after the daevas rearranged all of their faces in Chicago.

Too rapidly cooling as it flooded into the palm he'd pressed against Sammy's back at Cold Oak.

Soaking swift and dark through snugly wrapped linen napkins not long ago in Windom.

These stains aren't from Sam. But they're neither faceless, nor were they won in the throes of battle. Dean thought he'd steeled himself for this exact outcome, thought he was prepared to deal with this but the blood left behind stands out to him in a way none has since he washed his hands in Cold Oak.

The worst of it has been left on the jacket – that soft, broken-in coat that's been to Hell and back with him. But after they'd gotten back here to Bobby's, after Dean had mostly shaken off the shock of their failure and the residual pounding in his rung skull, he'd found it all over his clothing, dispersed across his jeans, button-down and t-shirt like some kind of uncontainable airborne pathogen.

It's likely some of the splatter is Dean's own, of course, from the split at his left temple that keeps drawing pitiful looks from both Sam and Bobby, and admittedly could have done with a stitch or two, but he's not looking to run tests or anything. The thought of any of it being theirs – being _hers_ – is enough to throw him so far off of his game, he's altogether forgotten what they're playing. Or why.

Dean's disgusted by the sight of his clothes and he won't wash any of it – won't EVER wear it again – but he hasn't yet made a move to thrown any of it out. That day's outfit is a twisted jumble of fabric in the corner of the upstairs bathroom and his jacket remains draped over the back of a chair in the library, hanging where it'd been carelessly dropped with bloody spots and smears dried stiffly into the canvas sleeves.

Going through the motions of throwing it away, of bundling it up and cramming it into a trash can – it feels too much like casting her aside, like reducing their sacrifice to something as trivial as soiled laundry, or a mess to be cleaned, and he can't do it.

Sam will, eventually. Because Sam is all about talking and spewing feelings and connecting with your inner what-the-hell-ever, but he's also a lot stronger than Dean, and he'll be able to do this one small thing that Dean can't.

But for now, there's blood.

*******************************************************

_To be continued..._


	2. Chapter One

After Carthage, Sam is the one to suggest they stick close to Bobby's for a bit, to catch their breath and steady their sea legs, and Dean doesn't argue. Doesn't say much of anything, actually, in the first few days after he returns from his solo, day-long trip to retrieve the Impala. Sam would worry about his big brother's silence but for the fact they're all fortunate just to be alive and _have_ the opportunity to suffer their latest losses in silence.

They'd either kill the devil, or die trying. That was the plan, anyway, and not one of them had accounted for this third outcome. The one in which they fail, yet somehow survive to deal with the fallout.

They retreat to opposite corners, burying themselves in work that's singular and no doubt lonely, but feels safe and familiar. Books for Bobby, and for Dean – the Impala, having come back decorated with scratches, dents and a busted windshield she didn't have when Sam last saw her at the curb in Carthage. Dean's not exactly forthcoming with the information of how she came to look so wrecked, and even less so with the reason his face is damaged to match or why he's moving about the house with a slow, awkward gait that betrays the fact every single step he's taking is jarring some injury – or injuries – he's not clued either of them in on.

Sam doesn't take lightly to being left out of the loop, and his concern is turning to frustration as Dean gingerly sidesteps every inquiry before stepping even more gingerly out of the room altogether. Bobby pours him a glass of whiskey and gives him a look that says to quit asking, that says they're lucky Dean came back at all.

Sam feels a lot of things right now, but lucky isn't one of them. They've lost their momentum in this war, and he's stuck in the middle as they struggle to regain some footing, pin balling back and forth between his brother and Bobby, neither unwelcome nor unwanted but certainly not invited into either man's claimed sanctuary in the house.

They haven't discussed their next move, haven't yet toyed verbally with the notion of moving on from Bobby's, but it's coming. Bobby's a solitary man, and he might have a father's love for them, might tolerate their existence in his home, might appreciate the way they can retrieve objects in the house that are now out of his physical reach, but he's visibly growing annoyed. With Sam's attempts at straightening up, perhaps; with the smears of oil Dean's leaving all over every doorknob and handle, definitely.

Sam's established a pattern of dropping in on each of them at random intervals, scanning the newspapers and making small talk with Bobby or perching silently in the garage for the duration of a cup of a coffee while Dean pretends not to notice he's there, but the research is slow-going and the mechanics of the Impala aren't his forte, and he doesn't have much to offer either of them in the way of tangible support. And for what might be the first time, his brother makes no attempt to offer support of his own. Sam's never seen Dean take a hit like this, so he's not sure what the timeline is for getting up off of the mat.

It's been a week, and Sam wouldn't need both hands to count the number of words his brother has said to him. He buries himself in busywork with the car every morning, and sometimes it's noon before Sam even catches sight of him.

It's common enough for Dean to fall into a funk like this, and Sam knows enough to know he should sit back and patiently wait his brother out, because Dean always snaps out of it, and the more he pushes the longer it takes to get his brother back.

But already, this feels different, and Sam's forgotten all of the previously established rules for dealing.

He rises early, with the sun, and takes the walk down the long gravel drive to collect the papers from where Bobby's property meets the main road, and shuffles back to settle at the table with a mug of strong coffee and no idea of the right thing to say.

It's not long before Dean, dressed in ratty jeans and a holey, rank gray t-shirt, announces his entry with heavy steps that set the floorboards creaking. He scrubs at the back of his neck as he makes his way across the kitchen, deliberately keeping his brother out of his eye line.

"Morning," Sam greets, forcing the issue.

"Morning," Dean reluctantly returns, his voice dropping to that rough, low growl Sam's starting to worry might be a permanent adjustment. He hovers around the counter, eyes dancing between the few inches of coffee remaining in the percolator and the few inches of whiskey leftover in last night's bottle.

Sam takes the beers he's handed and drinks the whiskey he's offered, but he doesn't _need_ it, not like Dad did or Bobby does or Dean is beginning to. That's not his poison.

He can't say for certain when, for Dean, drinking turned the corner from recreation to necessity, but he thinks it was Hell. That's when the nightmares picked up in frequency, when Dean started to see things in the shadows that Sam didn't, and it seemed he couldn't sleep so much as a wink without a little liquid assistance.

He's not sure his own missteps and betrayals – Ruby and Lilith and his own addiction with demon blood – are far enough behind them for Sam to have moved from the problem to the solution side of this equation, so he doesn't say what he wants to. But he can't continue to sit here and say nothing.

"Coffee's still hot," Sam opts for, forcing some degree of false indifference to cover the desperation in his voice. He lifts a shoulder. "I think."

Dean turns and raises his eyebrows. "Subtle." But he grabs an overturned mug from the drying mat next to the sink and makes a move on the coffee pot, so Sam can deal with his brother's ability to see right through him.

"Subtlety's lost on you, Dean." As Dean reaches across the counter, Sam's eyes catch a splash of maroon, purple and teal peeking out of the waistband of his brother's jeans. Deep, painful bruising that wraps around his back, horribly close to his spine and days old, but not as old as the short-lived confrontation with Lucifer. "What's that?"

The bottom of the mug _thunks_ against the countertop, and Dean shakes out his hand as a bit of the brew splashes over the rim. "It's coffee, Sam. Shit."

"No." Sam gestures toward the spot in question. "The bruise."

Dean's eyes widen like a caught child and he twists reflexively, face contorting into a wince as he does. He plants his ass against the counter, gripping the edge with both hands as he attempts a casual shrug. "Nothin.' S'no big deal."

_Right_. Just like the yellowing patch of bruising all along the left side of his face is no big deal. Bruising that didn't come from any tree, but fists, surely, and where his jaw is still impressively blackened, maybe the toe of a boot. Sam's just not sure if Dean went looking for a fight, or if one just found him. He shakes his head. "Are you ever going to tell me what happened?"

Dean rolls his eyes, turning back somewhat stiffly to grab his coffee. "What happened when?"

"When you went back to get the car?"

"Yeah, sure. I went back to get the car." He pauses for a long, loud sip of his coffee, maintaining eye contact over the rim of the mug as he drinks. "Riveting story, I know. Wonder who will play me in the movie." Dean's words are in jest but his tone is the one that warns a hit is looming around the corner, if Sam doesn't drop it. He makes a face. "Changed my mind. This isn't coffee."

Sam rolls his eyes but drops it, instead grabbing hold of the next worry in the queue, because Dean's body language is screaming _run, escape, and do it now._ "You going to have anything else for breakfast? Like, say, breakfast?"

They have free range of the house and everything in it whenever they're here, but it's not like Bobby putters about the kitchen putting together meals for them. Not anymore. There's half a loaf of sourdough bread on the counter and a tub of butter in the refrigerator, and they know where the knives are kept. That's about as far as the man goes when it comes to preparing breakfast.

Dean's jaw clicks. "What do you want from me, Sam?"

"I just want you to be honest with me, Dean," Sam says, nearly pleading, in as loud a voice as he dares take, knowing exactly at what volume he'll succeed in not only driving his brother out of a conversation, but out of a room, too.

Dean's lip curls as he sets the nearly-full mug aside on the counter. He drags a hand through his hair, fingers pausing to knead a spot at the back of his neck. "Yeah."

The threshold seems to have changed, because without another word, Dean hooks two fingers around the neck of the bottle of whiskey and lifts it as he sets out for the garage. Also without a bite of breakfast, and well before noon.

Sam sighs deeply and wearily, running both palms roughly down the length of his unshaven face.

It's not exactly the response he'd wanted from his brother, but it's the one he's come to expect.

His eyes fall on the line of shot glasses on the counter, forgotten or ignored, sticky with whiskey and smudged with the fingerprints of dead or elusive friends, and Sam takes it upon himself to dig up some dish soap from under the kitchen sink and wash away the residue. He feels a weight lifted after that single act, so he puts his hands to work tidying up the house; nothing much or to the degree of insulting their host, but dusting the leather covers of old books and the tops of doorframes, places Bobby can longer reach for himself, and small things he's been known to do to pass time in the past. Busywork, same as the others.

Then he finds Dean's discarded bloody jacket on a chair in the corner of the study, where it's hung untouched for days.

Dean had treated their father's leather coat the same way after he died, after the pyre burned out at the far end of Bobby's property, but donned it again, within the week and under a boiling summer sun. Out of a desire to be close to the old man, Sam guessed then and knows for sure now.

This is different.

They'd both come away bloody from this run on Lucifer, and while Dean's efforts won himself a nasty-enough head wound, Sam hadn't been wearing any of his own. Some of the blood on the jacket is bound to be his brother's but Sam had solemnly disposed of a shirt streaked and smeared with Jo's blood while Dean was retrieving the car, and he understands Dean's reluctance to deal with it.

As he reverently stuffs the folded jacket into a black trash bag, Sam thinks that maybe he's found one small way he can lend his brother the help Dean will never ask for or admit to needing.

He's always had a desire to do things the proper and normal way, and Jo and Ellen have already been given as much a hunter's fire as any of them could manage to give. There's a patch out back of the house that was maybe once a garden, and it seems as good a place as any.

Sam digs a small, shallow hole and nestles the bag snugly in the cold, loose soil. He crouches there for a long, silent moment behind the house, until the biting winter air numbs everything except the gaping pit of loss yawning in his gut.

And the next time Dean crosses through the library on his way to the fridge for a fresh beer, he pauses, taking note of the coat's absence, and it might just be Sam's wishful thinking, but his brother's steps seem noticeably lighter afterwards, and he responds with words instead of annoyed noises when Sam next attempts to make conversation.

Another week passes, and the three of them share a half-assed and mostly silent Thanksgiving dinner of open-faced turkey sandwiches, an abundance of whiskey and a package of stale snickerdoodle cookies that eat more like coasters than any sort of satisfying dessert. Bobby tries to crack a few lame jokes, Sam suggests a possible devilish omen they should look into, and an otherwise silent Dean excuses himself with a grunt while his brother's still shoveling a second helping into his mouth, retreating once more to the garage despite the hour or the temperature, hastily moving to put as much space as he can manage between himself and the others.

So it may have just been wishful thinking, after all.

******************************************************************

"There you are."

The familiar voice, and the twisted, playful tone it's wrapped in, drops a rock of fear and dread into Dean's gut. They've been caught, cornered, found out. They've failed before they've even really begun.

_He's_ failed.

Dean whirls on his heel while the words are still in her mouth, a few steps ahead of the others, but they're quick to catch up.

"Meg," Sam says, not out of surprise but sounding like Dad as he steps forward. Closing ranks. Every time. Some things change, but not Sammy. _Sam._

She shakes her head, _tsking_ arrogantly, the same ol' oddly condescending piece of shit he sent back to Hell, just in a new stolen package. "Shouldn't have come here, boys."

Dean's let this play out a few different ways already, just for shits and giggles; but even when he's dreaming, he can't seem to win. Can't seem to catch a break. It doesn't matter if he shoots her now or later or waits for the hounds to shred them all.

He's never quite quick enough.

They're going to lose, and Jo and Ellen are going to die. Sometimes Sam, too.

He just wants it over, wants to wake up now and never have to come back to this moment. But he knows he'll be back, the next time he closes his eyes and each time after that, until he survives long enough to relive a new, different nightmare.

They're talking now, Sam and Meg, jawing back and forth with each other like some strange pair of spurned lovers, because Dean's allowed himself to drop out of the conversation. The Colt jerks in his hand, the long, slim barrel connecting harshly with his leg, and he raises the gun.

She cocks her head, a smile slowly creeping across her face, cool and smug and not at all threatened by the sight of the gun.

And for damn good reason.

The hounds come snarling, growling, and thundering forward without warning; one for him and one for Sammy.

Dean steels himself and launches sideways at an angle meant to shove his brother out of the path of attack and the Hellhound catches him around the chest, dragging him viciously down. The back of his head strikes the corner of the curb, and he doesn't really _feel_ anything that happens after that.

But he hears the screaming.

*********************************************************************

Dean wakes with a jerk, breath caught in his throat and knee slamming against the dash as he lurches upright, torso connecting roughly with the steering wheel. Something thuds to the floorboards as his fingers splay wide and rise to claw at his chest. A wrench, maybe, from the feel and weight of the tool as it slips from his hand.

The car. _Shit_. He's out in the Impala, out in the garage at Bobby's place, and hadn't meant to pass out like he did. Well, not _pass out_ , and not for long, if the sleepy rush in his pounding head is any indication, but his weary body is definitely trying to tell him that he needs a real stretch of sleep.

A rush of wintry wind blows an empty beer bottle to its side with a clatter against the concrete pad, and it rolls noisily beneath the car.

Dean startles at the sound and drags a hand down his face, wiping away a palm full of sweat despite the chill hanging in the air. The dream fades and the chill takes hold, wracking his body with a series of shivers. He's been sitting still too long; but even a few minutes in November in South Dakota is a few minutes too long. It's only going to get colder as the day winds down, the sun already well on its way to heading that direction. If he doesn't make his way back to the house soon, Sam is going to take it upon himself to come out and collect his brother, and Dean needs to head that want off at the pass.

He returns what tools of Bobby's he'd taken from drawers and hooks, and he shivers the entire time, rapidly losing the effects of the adrenaline rush his dream had provided. It'd been warmer when he'd headed out here, closer to sixty, and Dean hadn't thought to grab anything with longer sleeves to throw over his grimy, grease-streaked t-shirt.

He enters the house through the back door with light, tentative steps, because for being such a big guy, his little brother certainly has a way of lurking unseen around every turn, looking to pounce, corner and wring words and feelings from Dean like water from a soaked rag. Bobby's been a bit more subtle about the feeling-wringing, waiting for those quiet late nights when they're sitting in the kitchen in a companionable, depressed silence, scooting a lip-loosening glass of whiskey across the table as Sam sulks in the other room.

There's curious action happening in the otherwise empty kitchen, unsupervised pots bubbling and boiling and something in the oven that might smell appetizing with a bit more time. No sign of Bobby or his brother, so Dean bypasses the thought of food to take the opportunity to make a silent beeline for the stairs.

When Dean steps out of the bathroom amidst a cloud of steam from a long and perhaps unnecessarily hot shower, Sam's waiting for him in a far too obvious way.

"We need to talk," he opens, quiet but firm, arms folded across his chest and feet planted stiffly against the floorboards.

It was too quiet out in the bedroom, not to mention downstairs, and that should have tipped Dean off to the setup. Footsteps make noise in this old house with vents that don't allow for much in the way of privacy, and voices carry. A door slammed on one end of the home will rattle windows on the other. Prolonged silence in Bobby's place is typically a dead giveaway that something is awry.

This is a bold move, because Sam knows better than anyone that Dean doesn't respond appropriately when cornered. He must have really done something to piss his brother off. He can't think of what exactly that may have been, but he _is_ still dealing with one mother of a distracting headache, every hit he'd taken in Carthage opting for the scenic route when it comes to healing. And maybe Sam's got a point, with all of this food he's been trying to push. Whatever the purpose of this talk may be, Dean's already sore, tired and annoyed, and not exactly tickled by the tone Sam's choosing to take.

Dean chucks his wadded armload of wrinkled, grease-stained clothing to the nearest flat surface. Not his fault that's the floor. "'Bout what?"

Sam blinks, gapes. "'Bout – ? " He steps back, makes that unamused, not-quite-a-laugh sound he developed sometime around sixth grade that always seemed to precede an all-out screaming match between he and Dad, and uncrosses his arms to drag a hand wearily down his face. The weariness is quickly replaced with something hard and audacious as he locks eyes with his brother. "Ellen and Jo just _died_ , Dean."

The sun is setting outside the window behind Sam, who seems to have exhausted all of the restraint he was allotted for one day. The light seems to hum as it filters bright and harsh through the streaky glass into the otherwise dim room, tugging at that headache Dean just can't seem to shake. He drops his eyes, swallows and bobs his head, and despite his shower-warmed skin, a chill runs through him. "I know. I was there."

When he raises his gaze, Sam's pulled a face from deep in the reserves, the one that has an experienced Dean _almost_ thinking his brother's gonna hit him. If he'd been looking Sam in the eye as he'd said it instead of a spot on the floor, that just might have been the turn this conversation took.

And Dean almost wants it to. But if he can't get the satisfaction of knuckles on a cheekbone not yet fully recovered from the last set, he'll settle for a good old-fashioned storm-off, complete with slamming door.

"God, Dean," Sam says finally, his voice thick and disgusted, but knowing. _Knowing_ , and it doesn't seem that Dean's going to get out of this one so easily.

_Dammit, Sam, just give me some space to fuckin' THINK._ He tries to step around his brother, but Sam takes a large, calm step to the side, blocking Dean's path out of the room. He narrows his eyes. "Move, Sam."

Sam shakes his head. "I've been staying out of the way for weeks, Dean. I told you, we need to talk."

His right hand clenches into a fist at his side, because one of the unwanted lessons he's learned over the last couple of years is that his little brother is not immune to Dean's fight or flight instinct. "Maybe YOU need to talk. I need to get back out to the car." It's lame and he knows it, especially as night is falling and he's just gotten cleaned up, but the Impala is the _only_ thing he can make sense of right now. Not his destiny or Sammy or what the hell their next move is going to be.

He steps forward and Sam reaches out to grip him tightly by the upper arm. "You've been saying that every day for almost two weeks, Dean. The car's fine. It's BEEN fine for days. Mint condition."

Dean stares down at where his brother's hand is wrapped around his bicep until Sam gets the hint and releases him. He fights the urge to knead at the aching spot, keeps forgetting just how strong Sam has gotten, especially when the kid's reacting and reaching in desperation. "You don't even know what you're talking about."

Sam raises his eyebrows. "Kept her running while you were Hell, didn't I?" Just one year ago, he never would have said such a thing, but they stopped pulling verbal punches around the same time they stopped pulling physical ones. "You think I did that without ever topping off the fluids, changing the oil or rotating the tires?"

Dean frowns. _He rotated the tires? Showoff._ "Wait – how long was I dead again?"

Sam is persistent, on a roll, and not in a mood to pause for Dean to make jokes. "You think I never had to touch up scratches while you weren't here?"

_"Scratches?"_ Dean demands, crossing his arms across his chest and assuming a commanding position to mirror the one Sam had opened the conversation with. "What the hell kinda scratches were you putting in my car, Sam?"

Sam sighs, scrubs a hand through his hair. "Can we not fight about the car?"

Dean shrugs, and the motion nags at a half-dozen lingering bruises and sore muscles throughout his torso. "I'm not lookin' to fight at all."

"You're always looking to fight, Dean," Sam says with a scoff. "You are a human billboard for a fight."

"That's kinda funny, seeing how you're the one who's pushing me right now."

"Pushing you to talk, Dean," Sam retorts. "To…you _have_ to deal with this."

"Oh, my God, Sam." Dean spins on his heel, crosses the dark, chilly bedroom with a few long steps. He turns, faces his brother. "Seriously, we caught in another time loop? This is like dealing with you after Dad all over again."

Sam huffs out another noncommittal sound. "No, it's like dealing with _you_ after Dad all over again."

Dean steps forward. "Okay, fine. Let's talk about this. How did you feel about Dad after he died? If I'm rememberin' right, you were a bit confused, weren't you, Sammy?"

Sam crosses his arms, straightens his spine. "And if _I'm_ remembering right, you spent more time dissecting _my_ feelings about Dad than dealing with your own."

And just like that, Sam rejects the bait that had been so expertly laid out for him, and any upper hand Dean may have hoped to gain goes pin-wheeling right out of the open door. He grits his teeth. "What's your point?"

Sam sighs. "You're just…taking this pretty hard."

"I'm fine," Dean grates, but Sam's right, because he can _feel_ how wrong the words are.

Sam sighs, and Dean adds it to the running total in his head, because he's going to want a point of reference for the future, to know exactly how many exasperated exhales he can wring from his brother before Sam finally hauls off and hits him.

"No, you're not," Sam argues. "You need to deal with this."

"With _what?_ "

Sam stomps his foot, but it's from nerves, not frustration. He squints as he contemplates his next words. "You and Jo," he starts, with some degree of hesitance. With some degree of respect, for all parties involved. "Was that ever…"

For all his big talk about the all-important gray that lies in the in-between, Sam's sure gotten it into his head that this is a black and white situation. Gotten in his head that Dean has to pick a side of the fence here, and right the hell now, too. Dean turns away from his brother, grabs up the navy button-down he'd left laid out at the end of the quilt-covered bed in the room and drags it on. "If you're trying to say something, Sam, say it."

Even given the opportunity to be direct, Sam opts to take the long way around. "I just think maybe you lost a little more than I did in Carthage."

Dean shakes his head as he rolls up the cuffs of his sleeves. He can feel Sam's stare, and he ducks his head, takes a swipe across his mouth with his palm. His calloused fingertips scrape against the stubble on his chin as he finally raises his head and locks eyes with his brother. "I don't know what the hell you're talking about, Sam. Like I said, I'm fine."

There's more Sam wants to say, clearly, as his jaw jumps and ticks and his eyes narrow. But in the end he only sighs, again. But this is the one that signals the end of the conversation, as much of a conservation as it was. "Yeah, you're fine." One more sigh, and Dean is honestly surprised he hasn't yet been hit. "If you won't talk, will you at least eat something?" Sam asks, waiting for Dean's tight nod before jerking his head toward the hall. "I made you dinner."

"YOU made dinner?" Dean asks skeptically and with a dramatic sniff, even as his stomach accepts the out and looses a traitorous growl. "When have you ever made anything other than a call for delivery?"

"Shut up." Sam fights the smirk tugging at his lips. He gives up, turning his back to his brother, so Dean can't truly glimpse his brother's expression as he says, maybe accuses, "jerk."

**********************************************************************

John Winchester was a man of extremes, and his sons are no different, neither of them ever seeming to find that middle ground. They're all or nothing in everything they do. Sam is damn near too much help, moving about the house with an almost anxious sort of energy, while his brother is no help at all. He's quiet, and distant, and seems to not want a thing from either of them that can't be poured into a glass.

He's worried about the boys – about _his_ boys – and has been for some time now, in a way that only increases with each day that passes. There's nothing quite like burying the young man you've all but adopted as your own to throw a wrench into any healthy train of thought or emotion.

This loss has hit them, _hard_ , but he knows each of them is trying to deal with the fallout in the only ways they know how. He wants to help them both, but he is no more equipped at dealing with a loss of this nature, nor of an impending apocalypse, than they are. So Bobby does what he can, and provides for them a place to regroup, and he keeps them from killing each other when their coping mechanisms clash in those rare moments they're both in the same room and speaking to one another, and while he's never done much in the way of preparing meals, there is always food to be found in the pantry, usually within reasonable range of its recommended usage.

A loud noise – what can really only be described as a small _explosion_ – tears Bobby's attention from the spread of open tomes atop the wide, dusty desktop, eyes darting in the direction of the kitchen just in time to see dark smoke filling the room, and spreading quickly.

"What in the name of – " His brain reacts and propels his body forward, and Bobby barely manages to catch his tipping weight against the arms of the chair before he sends himself all the way to the floor in a helpless, hopeless jumble of worthless limbs.

By the time his charges see fit to investigate the ruckus in the kitchen, the first floor is consumed by smoke, billowing thick and choking from the stove, and Bobby is parked in his wheel chair just beyond the oven door, swatting at a few licking flames with a blue and white checkered dish towel and cursing blue streak to leave sailors blushing.

It's the sort of scene that should have the oldest Winchester doubled-over and laughing till he can't catch a breath and tear tracks carve his freckled cheeks. Should, and normally would, before the realism of Hell and the truth of demon blood, before Angels appeared and the word "apocalypse" took on new meaning, before betrayal and loss. Before an overwhelming sense of destiny and purpose settled on shoulders already weighed down with more than they should ever have to bear. Instead, Dean just stands there on the threshold of the kitchen, eyes faraway and freckled face pale and impassive.

Bobby is forced to sit idly by and watch as it happens, watch as Sam pivots where he stands and realizes at the same time as Bobby that something fundamental and stalwart is damaged inside the now-eldest Winchester, and they may never be able to truly fix it.

Bobby rips his mind back to the present with a perhaps-overly, but necessarily gruff, "whichever of you two numbskulls set about burnin' down my damn house, you'd best get your ass over here and help me."

Sam fumbles with an incoherent response as he hurries forward, looking guilty and young and Bobby almost forgets what's going on in the background, almost fills the empty space Dean's laughter would normally fill with a guffaw of his own. Almost.

"Sorry, I was making . . . dinner?" Like even Sam, the culprit in question, isn't sure that's what this mess can be called.

Bobby throws him a look of skepticism, along with the blackened, ruined dishtowel, as he backs up to let the younger man deal with the mess. "You ever use a stove before?"

"Guess it's safe to say 'Cooking with Sam' won't be getting the full season pick up," Dean deadpans, his eyes narrowing up at the ceiling.

Bobby follows the direction of Dean's gaze, his face sinking into a look of confusion and utter disbelief as he takes in the sight of the dark metal of a pot's lid – and from a nice-enough set, too – embedded snuggly into the ceiling of the kitchen. He feels blood rush to his face as he spins his chair around with more force than necessary and wheels himself into the study without further word.

He doesn't have to turn to confirm two sets of baffled, guilty eyes watching his every move as he rifles through the large pile of books and papers on his desk, before wrestling a folded newspaper from the stack and returning to the blackened mess that was once his kitchen.

He chucks the paper at Dean, who just barely catches it against his chest as Bobby rolls to a stop between the two.

Dean glances down at the paper cradled in his hand, then back to the older hunter. "Um . . ." He can't seem to pull enough of himself together to manage the sarcastic or witty remark expected of him, and instead just opts for that same blank look of indifference that he'd been wearing since . . . well, too goddamn long.

"Three bodies in Brookhaven," Bobby all but growls, the meaning behind the brief words clear.

Sam puts down the charred, smoking dishtowel, wrinkling his nose at the unidentifiable remnants of food now melted and possibly fused to become a permanent part of the pot, before turning his full attention onto Bobby. "Brookhaven? Like, Texas?" His eyes slide sideways to the newspaper clutched loosely in his brother's hands. "Where did you even get that?"

"I have them shipped in from all over, keeping an eye out for omens and such."

Sam glances at his laptop, sitting with the lid opened, just inside the next room. "The internet?"

Bobby fixes Sam with a glare sharp enough to inform the young man as to his current position planted firmly atop his shit list, and jerks his chin back to the mess, also communicating the kid ain't anywhere near through with his cleaning.

Dean snorts at the look, or Bobby just imagines that he does.

"Saw that article 'bout the deaths in Texas," he explains. "I was gonna give it to that jackass Rufus, but he went and got himself tangled up with some ojin."

Dean sighs, holding the paper back toward Bobby. "Don't you think we've got more important things to worry about than a few deaths in Texas?"

"You mean moping around the house, or tryin' to set fire to my kitchen?" Despite the bite in his tone, Bobby sighs. It's not the boys' fault they feel lost in the middle of this war. They've lost their traction and don't have a clue how to get it back; maybe don't even _want_ it back. But if they're going to make it through this, if they're going to make it out _alive_ , they need to get out there and back on the horse, even if that horse is just some slightly suspicious deaths in a no-name town in Texas.

"Uh, no," Sam interjects firmly, almost like the simple act of agreeing will settle himself in his brother's good graces. "I think he means Lucifer."

"We have nothin' on the devil right now, and no way to stop him if we _did_ know where he is." Bobby fixes his gaze on Dean, intent on making that boy _hear_ him. "You let me worry about the devil for now. You boys just get outta here and do what you do best."

He spins around in his wheelchair, rolling steadily back toward the study, resigned to worry about the kitchen later.

"Bobby." Sam starts, some degree of hesitation in his voice despite his obvious desire to side with his brother.

"Go," Bobby orders. "Before you burn my house down, you idjits. But call me if you boys run into any trouble." He pauses, then throws a sideways glance over his shoulder and sees fit to add, "or if you need anything."

*****************************************************************

_To be continued..._


	3. Chapter Two

Sam's face feels fat and hot and tight, thrumming incessantly with pressure from a half-dozen points of pain. His vision on the left side is compromised, narrowed to a slit and blurry, and he rocks back unsteadily and moves to swipe at the offending area, dropping a canister he had in hand to thud with a metallic clang against a hardwood floor. His fingertips brush puffy, split skin around his eye and shift the stringy hair lying long across his forehead and –

_What the hell?_

Salt crystals spill thickly from the overturned can and Sam whirls on his heels, dropping a sheet of black across his field of vision as he spins. He presses the heel of his hand against his forehead and takes a few deep breaths, steadying himself, and cautiously cracks his eyes open to take stock of his surroundings.

Cabin. Dark. Night.

_Dean?_

"Dean?" he calls tentatively, forcing his hand to fall to his side to keep from further exploring the swollen skin of his face. Things might be a little fuzzy, but it's clear he took more than one hit here recently. He sniffs, winces; yeah, that's for _damn_ sure.

Dean comes into the room, looking pale and drawn and dragging ass. He acknowledges his younger brother with a quick raise of his eyebrows, but it's unclear whether the motion is in response to Sam's call.

He surges forward. "Dean, what – "

Dean stops him with a raised hand, fingers tensely splayed as his eyes dart back to the room he's just exited. "Dad'll be okay," he says, low and soft, like he doesn't want to be overheard. "Just needs some rest." He brings the hand up to rub the back of his neck. "How about you?"

"Dad?" Sam asks with a frown, the motion tugging at the marks around his eye and sending a flash of fresh pain rocketing through the beaten half of his face.

_Dad._

And suddenly, it all clicks. This tense, horrible night; this cabin; the seemingly insignificant amulet swinging on its cord around Dean's neck, smacking soundlessly against his t-shirt as he crosses his arms and regards Sam like his little brother has lost his damn mind.

He knows where he is now, what's going on. And he knows what he needs to do.

Sam draws himself to his full height and swallows roughly. "Dean, get the Colt."

"What?" Dean suppresses his surprise at Sam's request, strives quickly to replace the reaction with the crack of a reassuring smile, but the expression doesn't reach his eyes.

Sam hadn't realized this haunted look had overtaken his brother's features as far back as this. For all his ploys and antics, for all his joking and pranking, he was different from the Dean that Sam walked out on for Stanford, from the jump. Lived through holes in the story that he still hasn't seen fit to fill in for his little brother. He missed that Dean while they were apart. Often finds himself missing him still.

"Dude, Sammy, calm down," Dean says quietly, stepping forward with long, sure steps. "I don't think anything followed us here." He lifts a shoulder, gives that smile another go. "I mean, we couldn't have found a more out of the way place to hole up."

"No, Dean, the _demon_ ," Sam insists in a harsh whisper, leaning forward and jabbing a finger toward the other room for emphasis. "It's in Dad."

Dean's eyebrows draw together, and his right hand twitches to where Sam knows the gun is tucked in his brother's jeans. He takes a step backward. "What are you talking about? Sam, we tested him with holy water – "

"Forget the holy water, man. Just trust me."

The lights flicker, and the wind picks up outside, howling audibly and ominously beyond the walls of the cabin as a violent gust sends the loose shutters banging against the wood.

_This is it._

Sam swallows roughly. He has to do something right here, to save each of them from the initiation of a self-indulgent, self-serving pattern hurt and loss they won't come out the other side of. Or, at least, won't come out the same as they were before. Too much time has been wasted already, and he's prepared to tackle his brother for control of the Colt if it comes to that. This body may be young, might be a hair skinny and a little rusty, but Sam knows he can overpower Dean if he surprises him. "Dean – "

"Boys."

Sam whirls at the voice, vision flashing once more like a popping strobe light, and finds his father bracing himself on the threshold, framed by the soft glow of lamplight from the other room.

No, not his father. The demon.

_Azazel._

Every muscle in Sam's body tenses, until he's worried he might crack right down the middle, a fault line drawn from pure rage. _You son of a bitch._

"It found us," it says, in John Winchester's voice. "It's here."

Dean shoots wide, questioning eyes at Sam. "The demon?"

Sam keeps his gaze pinned on his father's face, and he doesn't know how he hadn't noticed the differences before. Doesn't know how he could let himself be fooled that this thing was Dad. The cadence of his speech is off, just enough. Dean's just so damned happy to have the man _here_ , he can't see it. Not yet.

The demon steps closer, a pretense of urgency deepening the familiar grooves of his father's face. "Sam, lines of salt – "

Sam moves fast, steps to the side and grabs Dean's right wrist tightly. He swiftly yanks his brother's arm up and spins him around, reaching for the Colt at Dean's back with his free left hand.

Dean manages a few incoherent sounds of protest as Sam yanks the gun free and he stumbles away. He straightens, looking surprised and pissed and not sure which should take precedence. "Sam, what the hell are you – "

Sam pulls the hammer back and levels the weapon at his father. "I already told you, it's _in him_ , Dean."

Dean gapes, then takes a halting step to the side, away from them both. They've reconnected over the past few months, reestablished that fraternal bond Sam forgot he needed, but Dean's hard-wired to answer to John, and that's where his gaze settles. "Dad, what's he talkin' about?"

"Your brother's lost his mind," the demon snaps. "We don't have time for this." Wide, imploring eyes turn back to Sam. "You wanna kill this demon, you've gotta trust me."

Sam shakes his hand, sweat breaking out on his palm where it's wrapped around the cool metal of the gun. He'll do it if he has to. Dean will be upset at first, and for a while, but he'll come around eventually. They'll be okay. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity, and Sam's not letting this son of a bitch get away again. Not letting those other cursed kids die because he can't do what needs to be done.

His eyes shift to his brother. "I'm sorry."

Then he pulls the trigger.

***************************************************************************

Sam jerks awake to the echo of a gunshot that sounds suspiciously like the riff of a drum thumped at an earsplitting volume. His limbs flail as the back of his right hand smacks the window to his side and his knees knock into the dashboard, and his heart is beating so frantically it seems poised to escape his chest.

The Impala swerves as Dean reacts to Sam's startle, yanking the wheel left and right. "Jesus, Sam," he protests shakily, once he's gotten the car straightened on the blacktop. "Son of a _bitch_."

Feeling appropriately stupid, Sam lays a splayed hand against the dash as he collects himself and steadies his breath. "Sorry."

"Lucky for us, these roads are all but deserted," Dean mostly mutters and mostly to himself, shaking his head. "Dammit." He gives the dial of the radio a jerk to the left, cutting the music off entirely, and goes to work easing the unexpected burst of tension and adrenaline from his body by flexing his fingers around the steering wheel, drawing faint clicks and pops from his knuckles. He turns to Sam and attempts some sort of reassuring smile, which is nice, given the way the last few days have passed, but the overall expression rings as false and hollow as the one from Sam's dream. "Good dream?"

Sam swallows, tearing his gaze away from this jaded stranger wearing his big brother's face. "No. Not really."

Dean shifts on the bench, and his words come out so thickly, it's as though they're being dragged, kicking and screaming, from between his lips. "Was it, you know…"

_What? The devil?_ "No. No, it was…" Sam leans back heavily against the seat, scrubbing roughly at his face with both hands. There are more than enough fresh wounds to contend with at the moment; no sense picking at those that have long since scabbed-over. "It was nothing." He stretches sleep-stiffened arms and peers through the rain sluicing outside the car in search of a passing road sign and an approaching city he recognizes. "Where are we?"

"Just outside of Wichita," Dean responds simply and blandly, perhaps too easily granting Sam the change of topic.

"S'it raining?" Sam asks, maybe stupidly. He's no meteorology geek, but he's pretty sure this part of the country, and especially at this time of year, doesn't traditionally lend itself to the sort of precipitation currently warping the view out of the windshield. The Impala's wipers are whining, straining to keep pace with the rain.

Dean works his jaw and cocks his head as if to say, _do I really need to answer that?_

And he doesn't, because Sam's just trying to fill the quiet, cold and seemingly empty space in the driver's seat currently occupied by his brother. Dean hasn't really been himself for so long, maybe it's time for Sam to accept the fact that thisjust might be who Dean is now. Quiet, cold and seemingly empty.

Dean raises his eyebrows. "S'there something goin' on with my face that I should know about?"

Sam hadn't realized he was staring again, and moves quickly to avert his eyes, points them once more at the wintry scenery beyond the windshield, empty fields and skeletal trees whizzing past in a gray, water-warped blur. "No." He sets his mind to flipping the pages of the mental atlas accumulated over years on the road, seeking to find a point of reference for their journey. If they're just outside of Wichita…that should put them roughly halfway to Brookhaven.

Only halfway, but his long limbs are already cramped and begging for the opportunity to escape the confines of the car, to roam and stretch. But one fast, fleeting perusal of Dean's stony expression and the full-enough gas gauge squelches any hope Sam might have that they'll be stopping soon.

He doesn't know what they're doing here. It's not as though Bobby had _shoved_ them out of the door to take this hunt, not like he'd necessarily been happyto see them go, but then again, the man has a tendency to see things the Winchesters don't. To see the things that need to be done in an unemotional, detached sort of way that Sam has really come to respect. Maybe even envy.

It's true enough that they were on the short road to driving each other batshit crazy the way they were holed up together in that house, wallowing in shared misery but not really sharing it. And maybe Bobby had a point, sending them out to investigate this string of strange deaths. Sam gropes at the floorboards for the discarded, crumbled section of newspaper that had served as their going-away present, squinting up at the gray, overcast and drizzling afternoon sky, and throws one for nothing. "Think we should find somewhere to stop for a bit?"

"I've driven through worse."

Sam grimaces as he straightens on the seat, dragging his palm along the thigh of his jeans as his hand finds the paper, but also some sort of coffee and/or energy drink residue dampening and sticking to the pages. "Yeah, but we've still got at least six hours to go, right?"

"Driven longer, too," Dean counters easily, tonelessly.

"Yeah, but you weren't – " Sam bites off his protest as to his brother's current physical, mental and emotion conditions. None of it seems good but Dean's not wrong; none of it has ever stopped him before. _You weren't running on empty_ , he finishes in his mind.

"Sam."

Maybe he didn't cut himself off quickly enough, or think quietly enough. "Yeah."

"Hand to GOD, man, I am not gonna spend the next two or three or however many days this hunt might take doin' the mopey emo two-step with you. If you've got something to say, say it. If not, then shut the hell up."

The sound of pounding rain fills the space between them until Sam lets out a sigh and shifts on his seat so that he's facing his brother, who face him, and has maybe just let out the longest string of words he's spoken to Sam in weeks. Since his Last Night speech, with a decent amount of whiskey cutting the divide between them. The guy needs a win, badly, so Sam gives it to him, flattens the newspaper against his leg and drops his gaze to the small print there. "We shouldn't be here."

Dean snorts, and it means _thanks_ in a way that holds more weight than words. "Sam, we are miles from any real civilization and the road is half-flooded. No one should be here."

Sam sighs again, thumps a fist against his leg. "No, I mean we shouldn't be out here at all. We should have…we should be looking for Lucifer."

Dean props his elbow on the door and rubs at his eyebrow, at the raised mark of his newest scar. "Are you seriously that desperate for Round Two, Sam?" He straightens on the seat, sliding his eyes to his brother. "Oh, wait, you might be. He didn't even touch you."

His brother's act of annoyance is somewhat dampened by his very obvious relief in the truth behind his statement, but Sam indulges him all the same. "Yeah, because he needs me, Dean," he answers, his frustration returning despite the fact he knows very well what Dean's doing. This avoidance tactic inherited from Dad, of being an insufferable asshole until Sam gives up on conversation entirely. "There's gotta be some leverage in that."

"You're not gettin' anywhere near the devil until we've figured a way to gank him. You get me?" The intensity of Dean's glare doesn't leave much in the way of interpretation. Just because he's been sulky and withdrawn the past several days doesn't mean he isn't still Sam's big brother, and it sure as hell doesn't mean he isn't still willing to step into the line of fire for his family. He waits for Sam to give a quick, tight nod before returning his attention to the road. "Anyway, Bobby's still on it. And I'm pretty sure we're only out here because you're a walking, talking fire hazard."

Sam chuffs out a laugh built from a foundation of obligation more than humor, and rolls his eyes. He blows out one last long breath, in an attempt to release what remains of the tension in his body, from the cramped car, from his dream, and what's left over from the all-too-real nightmare they've so recently survived. His gaze roams the newspaper article while fat raindrops continue to pound the roof of the Impala. "So this thing Bobby's got us checking out…"

"Yeah, what's the story there again?" Dean asks, once more jumping eagerly onto the change of subject.

Too eagerly, and Sam has to wonder how often Dean does this just because he doesn't want to talk about the things that need to be talked about. Because Dean retains facts about a hunt like nobody's business, remembers names, dates and faces, has Dad's journal memorized cover-to-cover and locks key information away in an impenetrable mental vault; yet every now and then, when things are at their bleakest, when they'd be hard-pressed to fit all of the unacknowledged baggage hanging between them in the Impala's spacious trunk, he prompts Sam to repeat seemingly benign bits of data like he doesn't have a clue what they're doing out here in the world.

Sam needlessly smooths the article against his thigh. It's the middle of the afternoon but there isn't much in the way of usable natural light breaking through the rain-heavy cloud coverage and finding its way into the car, and he has to squint to accurately read the small print. "Not a lot of details here, but, uh, this is the most recent of three deaths in town. In the same apartment building, no less. Uh, Tom Graham. Young guy, around our age, just…kicked it in his sleep. Heart gave out."

Dean considers, tipping his head toward the window as he runs the flat of his hand along the curve of the steering wheel. "It happens."

They've had this discussion before, years before in a stale-smelling clinic exam room, viewpoints swapped. One of those things they don't ever talk about, some of that baggage that's strapped tightly away in the truck next to the salt guns. Things like this _don't_ happen; they know that, too well. "He was a marathon runner, Dean," Sam adds carefully.

"Okay…" Dean's jaw _clicks_ as he thinks. "Is that really all that caught Bobby's attention?"

"Yeah, I guess." Sam scratches his forehead. "It's strange, right? Three deaths in one building? I mean, come on, man. In our experience, how often are these things really as simple as they seem?"

"Mmm hmm."

Sam sighs, knowing full-well that his brother will continue with this noncommittal nonsense until he's pointed in the direction of something he can kill. He goes to work folding the newspaper, stuffs it off to the side. "You got any thoughts about what it could be?"

"'Bout a couple of people dyin' in their sleep? S'not a lot to go on, Sammy. Could be anything." Dean's fingers curl around the wheel, shoulders high and tight and screaming of the same sort of pent-up tension coursing through Sam. Yet somehow, worse. "Curse, spell…hell, for all we know, this could be another Jeremy Frost out there, diggin' into people's heads and screwin' around."

Sam hadn't actually had that thought yet. He runs the scenario and frowns, chin jutting reflexively toward the back of the car, the trunk. "You think we might need the dream root?"

Dean shrugs. "Maybe?" He wrinkles his nose. "Hope not. God, that stuff tastes like ass. Of course, this could also be a giant steaming pile of not-a-damn-thing. A friggin' flu outbreak." He holds up a hand, lifts his chin. "In which case, you and Bobby _each_ owe me a drink."

Sam shakes his head and rotates on the seat, throwing his left arm over the top of the bench and dragging a bent knee up onto the leather. "You really think Bobby wanted us out of the house so bad that he sent us hundreds of miles away to look into a flu outbreak?"

"Sam. You set his kitchen on fire." In other words: _yes._

"Not…the whole kitchen, " Sam argues lamely, dropping his arm back into his lap with a sigh.

"Enough of it." Seemingly full-up on talking for the moment, Dean reaches out to adjust the radio knobs, chuckling softly as he does. It's a tired, wounded sound full of uncertainty but goddammit, if it isn't also a little bit amused.

And Sam relaxes, just a touch, to know his brother maybe isn't quite as cold or empty as he'd feared.

****************************************************************************

The third time Dean interrupts the poor woman by loosing a loud, dramatic sneeze into the bend of his jacketed elbow, Sam thinks his perpetually impatient, immature brother might be trying to ditch out of the interview in a blatantly obvious – not to mention rude – manner. But one peek at Dean's red, watery eyes and the scrawny gray cat glaring at them from the threshold of her open apartment door, its tail swishing more menacingly than contentedly, and Sam puts two and two together, figures out Dean isn't being impatient, he's simply downright miserable.

It hasn't been an issue as often as one might think, but there've been a handful of motels throughout the years that have given Dean a fair amount of hell, usually when they stray too far from the heart of a city into crumbling dumps, nestled in areas populated by more feral cats per square foot than people.

"I'm so sorry, Mrs. Summers," Sam offers, playing up the earnestness to cancel out the horrific, nasally noises coming from his brother as Dean holds up a hand and steps away to clear his throat or, from the sound of it, maybe hack up a hairball of his own.

"Oh, it's no problem, dear." The woman steps closer, putting herself so far into Sam's designated personal space that he can see the makeup caked garishly in the creases of her face, and count each and every stray tabby hair jutting from the weave of her knit cardigan. The varying colors of the hairs decorating the garment are even more evidence as to the cause of Dean's mounting discomfort; this little gray cat sure as hell isn't the only feline residing inside the apartment.

Dean comes back down the hall, fingers fidgeting uncomfortably with the collar of his dress shirt, and shoots Sam a glare that means _hurry the hell up_ , or maybe even _fuck the cat lady, let's roll._ He stops a safe distance away, curls his lip down at the cat before offering the woman a quick, tight, not-at-all apologetic grin.

Sam puts hand on her shoulder, guiding her to take another step down the hall in hopes of keeping her dander-coated ensemble from suffocating his brother before they get something resembling useful information from her. So far, all they've managed is a severely in-depth tutorial in the art of crocheting kitty-shaped tea cozies. "Mrs. Summers, you said you've been Tom's neighbor for nearly a year, right? Did you happen to notice anything out of the ordinary going on with him, before he died?"

"Oh, honey, I only knew the man enough to make small talk at the mailbox." She taps her chin, and a spray of cat hairs float from her sleeve to litter the floor. "But you know, he had seemed a bit under the weather lately, and the day before he died, he mentioned having trouble sleeping, that he'd been having the same nightmare every night, for the whole week."

The cat snakes its way through the cracked open door and stops, shooting glances between where Sam and the woman are chatting at one end of the hall and where Dean is glowering from the opposite. It studies them with an unnatural intensity for a moment, before raising its tail and slinking along the wall in Dean's direction.

"Son of a – " Dean steps back quickly, but not before the cat has an opportunity to weave between his ankles, rubbing against his leg with a loud purr. He glares down at the animal, and Sam's not positive his brother isn't going to kick the poor thing down the narrow hall.

"Oh, that's Pip!" the woman croons, rushing to bend and scoop the cat into her arms. She snuggles a pudgy cheek against the animal's back, and long gray hairs stick to her heavily applied makeup when she pulls away, setting it once more on the floor to pad lightly back in Dean's direction. She squeals with delight. "And she likes you! Isn't she just the most precious thing you've ever laid eyes on?"

"No," Dean says simply and thickly as he backs away from the approaching feline. He points a miserable glance at Sam, sniffs dramatically. "I think maybe I'll just wait by the car."

Sam nods, resisting the urge to yank the woman back by her collar. He frowns as he watches Dean retreat toward the stairwell, tripping sideways into the wall as he sneezes violently at the same time he moves to step around the gray cat and for a moment, Sam's not convinced his brother isn't going to pull the thus far concealed 1911 from his waistband and empty the clip into the animal.

The cat's owner seems disproportionately offended by Dean's hasty retreat, once more bundling her pet into her arms, almost as though she's attempting to comfort the damn thing. "She's a rescue."

"That's great," Sam says.

"Maybe…maybe if your partner got to know Pip a little better, he wouldn't be so put off by her?"

Sam smiles kindly, patiently, and pours it on as thick as he can. "That's really nice, but I don't think it's going to help." He tries to ignore the way the cat is squinting up at him from the cradle of the woman's arms, tail flicking back and forth against her chin. "Now, Mrs. Summers, what were you saying, about Tom having trouble sleeping?"

It takes him nearly twenty minutes to escape the gushing, droning woman, narrowly avoiding having to step inside to meet the rest of her litter, and by the time Sam manages it, he finds himself almost envious of the excuse of Dean's allergies. Until he steps out of the apartment building to find his brother racked by another bout of violent sneezing next to the parked Impala.

"Son of a bitch!" Dean swipes at his suit jacket, raising his eyes as he takes note of Sam's approach. "Seriously, man, is there a cat _on_ me?"

Sam smirks. "No, you're good." He trots around to the passenger side of the car and, as always, waits for the cue of Dean popping open the driver's door before opening his own.

Dean throws a hand at the entrance of the building before yanking on the handle of his door. "I hope you got something useful from the crazy cat whisperer, because I sure as hell ain't goin' back in there."

"Maybe," Sam responds, though he's not sold on the significance of any information secured during his interview. "Turns out Tom Graham might have been sick before he died, and he was having some kind of reoccurring nightmare that was keeping him up at night. I don't know, man. It's not a lot to build from."

Dean nods. "Recurring," he mutters distractedly as he drops into the car.

Sam follows suit, pulls the door closed with a frown. "What?"

Dean sniffs, drags a knuckle beneath his nostrils and rubs his hand down the thigh of his pants. "It's recurring."

Sam fumbles wordlessly for a moment once he realizes Dean is right. "I know."

A smile grows on Dean's lips as he takes his sweet time in starting the car. "Really? Because you said – "

"I know what I said." Sam squints out the windshield, won't grant his brother the satisfaction of eye contact.

"Sam."

"What? I know what I said, all right?"

Dean twists the key in the ignition, eyes a bit faraway, but with that smile still plastered on his face. "Okay."

The drive back to the motel is a short one, but Dean makes good use of it, alternately chuckling softly, clearly satisfied with himself, and sneezing loud enough to wake the dead. He might also set a new personal best for shouted curses per miles driven.

Dean slams into a parking space outside of their room and climbs from the car, leaving the keys in the ignition. Before Sam can utter a word, he works his wallet free of his back pocket and digs out two twenties, tossing the money onto the bench. He jerks his chin toward the liquor store on the corner. "I got drinks. You grab dinner." Another fierce sneeze knocks him back a step, and he almost trips over the curb. "Son of a _bitch_."

Sam tries not to look amused, can't help feeling somewhat grateful for this non-threatening attack of standard, _normal_ allergies and his own grammatical misstep to distract his brother from the darker, angstier paths down which his mind is known to wander. He'll cling to this with both hands, wring as much light-heartedness from the moment as he can. "You got anything in particular in mind?"

Dean sniffs, then wrinkles his nose and swipes at his nostrils with his thumb and index finger. "Anything but Chinese."

Sam palms the cash and scoots across the bench to square up to the steering wheel. "You got it."

Dean thumps the roof lightly with a fist as he shoves away from the car. He sneezes again as he spins away from Sam, finishing with a barely suppressed roar of frustration. "Fuckin' cats, man," he rants as he stalks down the sidewalk, to no one in particular.

****************************************************************************

"You're not strong enough."

The words take him by surprise, rock Dean back on his heels like a blow to the gut. He shakes his head, feeling sluggish and out of place, like he's been plopped into the middle of something he doesn't quite fit into. He strains to find cause for such a statement, but can't remember what may have taken place before these words of Sam's. With no better or more logical point of reference, they serve now as the starting gun for a race he doesn't want to run. He squints across the brightly lit room at his brother. "What?"

Sam seems desperate in his persistence but oddly jittery, unnaturally amped-up. He shifts his weight and flexes fists at his sides before raising his hands. "Dean…I'm being practical here. I'm doing what needs to be done."

_Wait…I know this._ Dean takes a step away from his brother and casts a glance around, immediately recognizing the hotel room; the curtains, the wallpaper, and that ugly-ass railing that left a grotesque line of bruising across his back after he'd crashed through it. And as soon as he's managed to place the setting everything that brought them here, and everything that happens after – it all comes rushing back, flooding his senses with pain and regret and that dark pit of desire in his heart and soul to have a chance to do things differently. To keep Sam calm and make him listen, and not let him leave. Not dress his fear and desperation in Dad's tone and tell him to stay gone. "Sammy, look – "

"Stop bossing me around, Dean." Sam bites out each word one at a time, with a ferocity that's been pent-up for a while, his anxiety melting away to reveal the anger buried beneath. And just below the surface of that is a volatile bubble of rage that's been stoked and expertly manipulated over the past year, a barely contained violence just begging for a release. "You look. My whole life – "

"Sam, just stop!" Dean exclaims, feeling a bit desperate himself. He holds out a hand toward his brother, bouncing it lightly and pleadingly as he tries to put his thoughts into an order that will get the job down this time. "Okay, listen to me for a second. Dammit. You don't know what you're doing." He winces as he says it.

"Yes, I do."

"No, you don't, okay? Ruby is – "

"Just say it, Dean. Say what you're thinking." Sam steps back, rolling his eyes toward the ceiling and huffing out a laugh that sounds like a threat wrapped in a dare. "I mean, why start holding back now?"

Dean raises his hand higher, his body unconsciously preparing to hold his brother at bay even as his mind scrambles make sure this plays out differently. "We're not gonna do this, Sam."

"Say that you don't trust me."

"I DO, okay? I trust you, Sammy."

Sam seethes. "You think I'm a monster."

"Sam, I never said that," Dean persists, his own voice rising to match the intensity in his brother's. _Not this time, anyway._

Sam shakes his head. He huffs and turns his back, set to stomp out of the room.

Dean grabs frantically for his brother's arm, dead-set in his desire not to let the kid walk away this time. "Sam, wait – "

Sam whirls, leading with his fist, and clocks Dean high on his cheekbone with a crack that splits the air in the room.

************************************************************************

The _crack_ jolts Dean awake. He jackknifes atop the thin motel bed to a wildly galloping heart and the phantom pains of long-healed contusions twanging in his face. He plants a palm on the mattress and drags the other hand down his face, fingertips brushing stubbled, unbroken skin. _Shit._ He almost can't remember how it felt to wake gradually and naturally. Can't for the life of him remember when that last may have been. He hadn't meant to fall asleep and can't have been for long. He throws a glance toward the direction of the sound that woke him, finds his brother standing just inside the room.

Sam is staring wide-eyed at Dean with the guilt of a small, disruptive child, as though his startled expression is due more to the slamming door than the dream the slam had yanked him out of. "You okay?"

"Yeah," Dean answers automatically, but his gravelly voice sounds unsure even to his own ears as he attempts to blink away the disturbing, clinging remnants of his dream. It's one he's had before, but not in months; not necessarily a _recurring_ one. He struggles to rid his mind's eye of a furious Sam looking to put him down and, maybe, a dark, feathered flurry of wings on the periphery.

He frowns. That can't be right; it'd just been him and Sam in the room, after Ruby tucked her tail between her legs and hightailed it out of there. Dean sure as hell hadn't had a wingman while he was getting his ass handed to him.

"Sorry, man. Didn't know I was gone long enough for you to fall asleep." Sam steps fully into the room, depositing an armload of brown paper bags to the rickety aluminum-legged table. "You kinda look like you caught my bad dream," he says, in a cautious, inquiring tone lying somewhere on the spectrum between jest and concern. And maybe, even slightly disappointed.

"Yeah," Dean repeats, but doesn't elaborate. The dream is all but gone now, a frustrating mash of pleas and pain he can't make sense of but can't fully shake. He moves to rub the blurry effects of another bout of too-little sleep from his eyes as he throws his legs over the side of the bed. His eyes take a lap of the room, make note of the now-darkened sky outside the window, skip over the growing expression of concern on his brother's features, and settle on the face of the alarm clock next to the bed. Sam's right; he couldn't have been gone more than twenty minutes. _Shit._

"Clowns or midgets?"

Dean drops his hand and blinks dumbly up at his little brother. "What?"

"Nothing." Sam sighs and pulls a wadded white plastic bag from his jacket pocket, pitches it gently at Dean. "Claritin, for the, uh..." He waves a vague hand around his own face.

"Yeah. Thanks." Dean resists the urge to scrub at his suddenly itchy nose and fists the package next to his thigh, the thin cardboard box bending easily in his grip.

"Trying to avoid laundry duty?"

"Huh?"

Sam gestures to Dean's clothes. "You're still rocking the fed gear." His eyes narrow and the jest falls completely out of his tone, concerning being drawn to the forefront as Dean can't seem to gain any footing in the wake of his dream. "Not a great idea, by the way. I know you were kidding before but, seriously, you've gotta be covered in cat hair, man."

"Oh." Dean pats at his chest, where his dress shirt is now damp with sweat. He loosens the knot of his tie and drags his hand up through his equally sweat-drenched hair. For such a short dream, it's sure done a number on him.

"Food?" So if Sam's dreaming isn't contagious, at least they know that Dean's one-word sentences are.

Dean nods, clears his throat and sneers down at the sight of the thick cat hairs stuck to his pant legs. "Yeah. Sure."

Sam returns the nod, slowly, and turns back to the table to unpack dinner. "Take one of those pills, man."

Dean digs into the grocery bag and unwraps the allergy meds. He doubles the dosage, knocks back two tablets with a swig of the beer he'd left on the bedside table when he'd reclined on the bed, experience allowing him to bank on the combination to grant him a sleep deep enough to skip the nauseatingly-realistic nightmare portion of the rest of the evening.

Speaking of…he keeps his eyes on Sam's turned back as he discretely presses the heel of his hand to his throbbing cheek, wincing at the tenderness there in the exact spot his brother's fist had crashed into in his dream, and a coppery tang from his swallow of beer brings Dean's tongue probing cautiously at the line of teeth. Everything seems to be in order, but a taste of blood still taints his mouth. _What the…_

He must've bitten the inside of his cheek when he woke so suddenly, but Dean is left with an odd feeling to shake off as shoves off of the bed to join Sam at the table.

*************************************************************************

_To be continued..._


	4. Chapter Three

Bobby tilts his chin back, raising his eyes past the charred remains of the once-shiny stainless steel pot, three days abandoned on the counter now and no doubt ruined, to land on the blackened scorch mark marring the ceiling of his kitchen. Even more specifically, to the matching lid still firmly rooted there above his head. He narrows his eyes, not sure whether he should be irate about the damage caused or, possibly, impressed by how deeply embedded the damn thing is. He'll give Sam this much: the kid's got style.

Bobby frowns, rubbing a calloused palm across the whiskered landscape of his chin. He really should've made sure one of those two idjits climbed up there and pulled the lid loose before he kicked 'em out of the house. He's had things on his mind, though, and for quite a while now. Heavy, earthshattering, distracting things he'd never had the notion would one day be spilling over from his plate.

Demons are one thing. But the apocalypse?

Just because he's squirreled away an armory, built a panic room from blood, sweat and iron and amassed a collection of buckling shelves loaded with books full of lore and myth and story in most languages known to man, that doesn't mean Bobby Singer ever thought he'd be staring down the barrel of the actual end of the days with a way to put it all to use. Never thought he'd be one of the few working to stop it from coming to pass. But work as he might, it's still not his fight.

His boys. It's their fight.

After having long-since closed himself off to others and embraced a life of solitude, avoiding all unnecessary human contact and skirting the edges of a town in which he'd made quite am unfortunate name for himself, Bobby'd never expected to have his feelings tugged at again. And certainly not by two damn little hellions who'd dragged their feet across the threshold of his front door, no more pleased with the prospect of being there than he was of having them.

He's always worried about them, even through the stretches of time they've been apart. Dean might have been missing his brother for four long years, but it had been nearing seven since Bobby laid eyes on that skinny little handful. Without a letter, email or phone call, too. He doubts the kid ever thought about such things, but can't truly fault him for it. If there's one thing Bobby's known for, it's – well, his love of the bottle. But if there's a second thing, it's his knack for acquiring information. It'd have taken him less than an hour to get his hands on a phone number or address for Sam in Palo Alto, if he'd put the effort in. So maybe they've all got things to make up for.

Lost time, and missteps. Instincts ignored and responsibilities shirked all around, to disastrous results.

Losing John to this way of life was an inevitability. That jackass wouldn't have ever had it any other way, and any guilt his sons carry over his passing is horribly unwarranted, but they won't hear any of it. There's Dean, itching to follow in his footsteps, and Sam, driven to do anything but. And in the background, Bobby, with one hand snug on each of their shoulders, holding them back from the edge of the cliff.

And for all his worry and all his efforts, he's still seen each of them battered and bloodied, seen each of them in the heart-wrenching aftermath of a sudden, violent death, and Bobby's felt every hit as though it was his own.

And that's not taking into account that he's already taken a few of his own hits. Bobby runs the flat of his hand along the smooth arm of his wheelchair, then brings it up to rub at his tired eyes.

He hasn't been sleeping well, not for, _hell_ , more than a year. Not since he stood in his own rusted graveyard of broken, junked cars and confronted Dean, cornered him until he admitted to just how closely he was following in his daddy's footsteps. Not since that boy told him he'd sold his soul to a demon in exchange for his brother's life. Since that day, it's just been one thing after another, without much respite between each ensuing catastrophe. It's always those boys keeping him up, though. His boys. For mistakes, for failures, for bullheaded acts of buffoonery dressed up as brotherly love. Bobby's lost count of the nights he's traded sleep for research, either as a necessity of the current gig or more simply, failed attempts at slumber that leave him gasping for breath in the aftershock of nightmares that seem all-too-real. Horrible reimaginings of things he'd never wanted to remember, or things he couldn't ever seem to forget.

And sometimes, things he couldn't ever quite make sense of. Like the dream Bobby'd had just the night before, after he'd finally given up with the books for the day. Most likely spurred on by shoving those boys out the door in various states of unacknowledged distress, it'd been about a hunt from the previous year, one that he'd all but forgotten in the mess of everything going on, but left a lingering, bad taste in his mouth.

_"I'm worried about my boys, Rufus."_

_"Your boys?"_

With a scoff and a raised eyebrow, like Bobby was an ass for even thinking such a thing, let alone speak it.

They _are_ his boys. He's watched them grow from children and would like to think he's played some small part in shaping the men they've become, and are still becoming. That might be a fair amount of ego talkin', seeing as they _had_ a father when they were growing up, even if he was a distant, broody and preoccupied one. Bobby can't disagree that he might have seen and seized an opportunity to reconcile the missteps of his own father, or make up for the children he'd never have, from the first time John brought those boys through his door; Sam nosy and inquisitive, Dean quiet and wary. They've grown, but maybe haven't changed as much as they'd like to think.

Bobby's stomach looses a low, discontented growl at the thought of any taste in his mouth, and he discovers that he hasn't a clue when he last ate. It's easy to forget things like a balanced breakfast when you're counting down days to the friggin' _apocalypse._

Bobby spins and points his chair in the direction of the refrigerator for a few items, then squares up to the counter to go about fixing himself a ham sandwich. He has to stretch awkwardly over the edge for the items his less vertically-challenged houseguests had pushed closer the wall without taking into account his new – _current_ – situation. Or perhaps just not taking it into account in the moment. He doesn't want to think of them as selfish, but merely…occupied.

Like he's been occupied, each and every time he's gotten around to trying to put into words that damn hunt that'd kept him up the night before, one he'd let Rufus drag him on when he should have been searching for Lilith.

_"Well, get ready to buy me a bottle of Johnny, 'cause it ain't a Baku, it's a ghost. Plain and simple."_

Plain and simple. Wasn't a goddamn thing that was plain and simple about that hunt, and Bobby's still got that bottle of Johnny, note of surrender and all, lying around here someplace…hasn't ever really felt he deserved the win enough to crack it open. It's not like Rufus to admit defeat, and that jackass had been cagey as all get-out after all was said and done in Grand Rapids, looking like he'd seen…well, something strange, but he wouldn't share, hadn't allowed the subject to be breached since.

And maybe Bobby should be a little more sympathetic to that, since he's had months to try to suss out for himself just what he'd seen when he was caught…wherever the hell he was. His boys – HIS boys – dead and gone, but just a trick of his eyes, of that _thing._ Whatever it was. Trapped now; but not dead. And that means the job ain't done.

Bobby wipes his hands on a nearby dishtowel and drags the plate onto his lap, after a moment's pause grabbing a squat glass tumbler and stacking it precariously atop his fat sandwich. He braces the pile with one hand and rotates his chair with the other, pushes forward steadily to his desk in the library. There are too many thoughts running through his head, and he needs to lock down at least one of them and put it to good use. This unfinished job and incomplete journal entry…that ain't like him. He won't be around for his boys forever, and he'd hate to leave behind a legacy of holes and untold stories like John did.

He sets his plate on the desktop and pushes it immediately to a corner, drags open a drawer and withdraws his journal. Bobby flips back through the pages, through current notes tracking omens and occurrences that give off any stink of Lucifer, and finds that nearly blank page from last spring.

_Grand Rapids, Michigan…possible ghost hunt with jackass._

Bobby sits back in his chair and drops his chin into his hand, thinks back on that hunt, and back on his dream…caught up in that house, looking at Dean, with that kid lookin' right back at him. _Seeing him._

But he wasn't a kid. It was Dean all right, but not…not Dean. But not in any sort of way he can explain, and Bobby's got no point of reference for this strange feeling that overtakes him, every time he tries. Maybe he's never gotten around to putting more details on the page for the same reason he's sometimes plagued by that night in his dreams: because he's not yet found a way to make sense of what exactly happened in that house.

Now's as good a time as any, he reasons, and drags his glass closer, fingers going to work rooting around for a pen or pencil while his eyes search for whiskey.

But wouldn't you know it, soon as he's filled his glass and lays the tip of his pen to the flat of the awaiting page – one of the damn phones starts ringing in the kitchen, causing him the standard moment of startle and dread.

Bobby sighs and pitches his pen down, tosses back the two fingers of whiskey in his glass before he makes his way back toward the phone bank, knocking aside one of the chairs at the table with a muttered curse as he does. Navigating the narrow passageways of his house was a hell of a lot easier on legs. It's the house line ringing, which at least means he's off the clock. Or, as much as he ever is.

He grabs up the receiver, gets the long twisted cord tangled around his elbow as he brings it to his ear. "'Lo?"

_"Hey, Bobby. So, we're kinda stuck here."_

Just like their daddy, these boys have a way of making even pleasantries sound like demands, and never seem to think to call just to say, _hey, man, we made it here safe and sound._ It's not _his_ fault his heart leaps into his throat every time the phone rings.

Bobby drags his eyes past the setting sun, notes the time on his watch then digs his fingertips into his brow bone, drawing forth the details of the article he'd done little more than skim and deem a good enough excuse for getting those boys off their mopey asses and out there doing what they do best. "Young guy, died in his sleep, right?"

_"What? Bobby, you sent us out here to take this case. You don't even remember what it is?"_

Bobby rolls his eyes. "Yeah, 'cause I wanted you two to quit draggin' your whiny asses all over my damn property. Wasn't sure you'd actually find anything worth findin.'"

_"Well, we did. So what've you got?"_

Dean now, loud and clear enough to be proof Bobby's own voice is being broadcast via speakerphone, but sounding farther from the receiver and more short-tempered than he was when the two left town. And that's saying something.

Sam speaks again, but it's muffled, garbled, like he's got his hand over the phone to spare Bobby the satisfaction of hearing it as he reprimands his brother. When he comes back on the line, he sounds nearly as irritated as Dean.

_"Yeah, young guy died in his sleep, and two more in the week before him, all in the same apartment complex. Coroner couldn't find any obvious cause, or evidence of physical trauma on the bodies."_

Bobby glares out at the materials piled on top of his desktop in the other room before scouring the equally littered kitchen table for something to write on and something to write with. He cradles the receiver between his chin and shoulder and digs a ballpoint pen out from under a folded newspaper, flips through a coffee-stained yellow legal pad in search of a fresh page. "You've ruled out natural deaths?" Every page is covered and scrawled over, including the margins, and he flips the entire pad over with a fair amount of frustration, pen scratching across the thin cardboard backing.

_"All but. There's definitely something weird about all this, and one witness said this last guy…uh, Tom Graham, was being plagued by some sort of recurring dream before he died."_ A pause, and a mumble in the background. _"I get it, Dean. Seriously, drop it already."_

With a frown, Bobby notes that on the back of the legal pad. "You thinkin' you've got another dream walker on your hands?"

_"I dunno. None of the victims seem to have fallen into a coma like we saw two years ago. S'like their hearts just gave out in the middle of the night. And our witness statements all read pretty much the same. Victims – if we're going to call them that – seemed run-down, under the weather. But they were all seen the day before they died, and every death was unexpected."_

"Uh huh," Bobby says in response, absentmindedly as he continues jotting short-hand notes. "No evidence of physical trauma, you say?"

_"No, nothing. Well, the second guy who died was some kind of amateur MMA fighter, so we wrote off a few bruises and abrasions, but that's it."_

"The hell's MMA?"

_"You've got a TV, man. Turn it on every now and then."_

Bobby's left with a moment to think while Sam hastens to scold his brother once more. "So what's your workin' theory?" he asks loudly.

_"Well, if we had one…"_

"You wouldn't be pesterin' me. Yeah, yeah." Bobby winces at his word choice, overcompensating for his concern by putting on an air of annoyance, just like Dean is. "What've you ruled out?"

The pregnant pause on the other end of the line lets Bobby know they haven't invested nearly as much time in research as Sam might be leading him to believe.

_"I mean, we spent all day yesterday tracking down witness statements, and just finished up with the coroner a little bit ago, and we're still trying to organize what we've got – "_

"Yeah, yeah," Bobby repeats, harshly, to hush Sam. "Could be a Baku," he mumbles distractedly, eyes drifting to the nearly-blank journal page laid open on the desktop in the library. "A'course, there's a lot of things seem like they could be a Baku."

_"Dude!"_ Sam's exclamation is somehow more loud and sudden than the sneeze that precedes it, and brings Bobby pulling the phone away from his ear. _"Tissues!"_ Dean mutters something indecipherable, but no doubt rude, in the background, and Sam returns a heartfelt, _"Well, it's gross. That's not what your hands are for. Jesus, Dean. Take another one of those pills already."_

It's no surprise that the kid had worn himself down to the point of being susceptible to a cold, but Bobby knows better than to worry, knows that if the past is any indication, it'll prove more annoyance than hindrance before it runs its course. It takes a lot more than a case of the sniffles to hold Dean back. Bobby sighs, drags his trucker hat from his head and scrubs at hair in dire need of a wash while he waits to come back into play. Now his eyes move from the journal to that half-shot bottle of whiskey standing at attention next to the open book. He wonders if he could wheel to the other room and back to fetch the bottle before Sam remembers he's here on the line.

_"Hey, Bobby, didn't you mention something about a hunt you did with Rufus last year? Kid fell into a weird coma in the middle of the night? Or something like that?"_

Too late. Bobby shakes his head, returning his hat to its perch. "You two dumbasses have some of the most selective hearing of anyone I've ever met."

_"Huh?'_

_Exactly._ Still, it's strange Sam would mention the very hunt that's been plaguing his own mind. With another sigh, Bobby stares longingly at the bottle.

_"Don't tell me he's got nothin', Sam. That man writes more notes than a teenage girl."_

For the second time, Bobby lets it slide. He's not typically one to sit idly by and allow himself to be a casualty of Dean's misdirected ire and frustration, but at the same time he can't quite bring himself to admonish him, when he's hurting like he is. There are times he'd throttle that boy, if he hadn't literally been through Hell and back, and if Bobby didn't know exactly what the son of a bitch was doing. And if he didn't have the backside of a legal pad scrawled all over just from this brief conversation, proving the kid every bit of right. He gives the pad a shove, sends it scraping across the tabletop, and tosses his pen atop it. "If you two are done?"

_"Yeah, Bobby. Sorry. Go ahead."_

"It's not a lot to go on, but I've a got a coupla things I can look into for ya." His eyes make a circuit of the stacks of books that line the walls of the library. "And I probably have better resources than you do," he concedes. "You boys just…take the night off, I guess."

_"Thanks, Bobby."_

His mouth is open when the call cuts out, but he couldn't be sure what he was going to say next. Bobby pulls the receiver away from his ear and stares at it a long moment, listening to drone of the dial tone. "You're welcome," he says with another sigh.

He hangs up the receiver and pushes through the house back to his desk, passing discarded items strewn where's he's left them to do what's needed for Dean and Sam. Because he'll always drop everything, and do what's needed for Dean and Sam.

_"Oldest rule of hunting, Bobby. You can't save everyone."_

Bobby's never been much of one for rules. He's going to save his boys. From themselves, if nothing else.

**********************************************************************************

Dean's been hovering near the short, narrow counter of the kitchenette in their room for going on fifteen minutes now, alternately flipping the same handful of bottle caps into the small sink and staring daggers at Sam. He subjects his brother to five more _pings_ against the bottom of the basin before he finally sighs. "What're you doin'?"

Sam returns the sigh and squares up to the laptop, keeping Dean in his periphery but refusing to grant his sniffling, sneezing, irritable and irritating big brother the higher ground by making direct eye contact. "Just because we're waiting on a break in this case doesn't mean we're off the hook."

Dean sneezes grotesquely, almost on cue. "Dude, what the hell?" he demands of his brother, almost as though _Sam_ is personally responsible for his ongoing allergies. "I haven't seen a cat in days." He leans back against the edge of the counter, drags a hand through his hair and rubs at the back of his neck. He looks drawn, pale and weary, gone too long without a good night's sleep. "Anyway, Bobby's on it, and you heard the man." He sniffs, makes a face, and starts looking around the room for something better than beer. "We've got the night off."

Sam hates that he can read that intent in his brother's expression and movements. He rotates in his seat, draping an arm over the top of the chair. "We've had too many nights off lately. And in case you've forgotten, this isn't the only job we're working, Dean." There was a time that the idea of being _on the job_ was enough to deter Dean from hunting for the nearest, fullest bottle of whiskey. A time before death and deals and Hell.

Having gotten his hands on what he was looking for and already poured a quick glass, Dean slams the bottle of whiskey against the countertop, rattling the line of last night's empty beer bottles. One tips from the impact and lands on the floor with a soft _thud._ "Sam. I'm not saying this again. You are _not_ getting near Lucifer. I'm not gonna…" He drags his lower lip between his teeth, shakes his head. "Nothing."

Sam swallows, feels sweat gathering on his palm where it's wrapped around the back of his chair. _I'm not gonna lose someone else._ That's what he was gonna say; Sam's all but sure of it. "Dean…"

"Shut up, Sam." Dean turns back to the counter and pours a second glass, walks it over and sets it on the table without looking Sam in the eye. "Sit there, drink your whiskey, and speak only when spoken to."

Dean – "

"Ah!" Dean spins and holds up a hand. He raises his eyebrows and waits for Sam to nod his reluctant consent before backing away to settle against the headboard of his bed. He takes the bottle with him, dropping it and his glass to the faded surface of the bedside table with a pair of _thunks,_ and flops atop the covers, crossing his arms over his chest.

*****************************************************************************

It's bright, but overcast. Wind whipping and the cover of clouds pooling daunting and heavy overhead, threatening rain, but Dean knows it won't fall. He's been here before, almost every time he chances closing his eyes for over two weeks now, and the rain never falls.

He takes stock, heartbeat and breath catching as his eyes skim over Ellen and Jo wearing matching uneasy expressions. Hunter's instinct warning of danger but not yet knowing what that really means, not like he does. Sammy appears strong and determined next to him, and the Colt in Dean's hand is a welcome, comforting weight.

But an overall irrelevant one.

"There you are."

Dean spins on his heels as she's speaking, knowing she's here before the others do. She's always here. His gut clenches around a mass of fear and loss and helplessness, because he's run this through in every way he can think of, trying something different each night, but the outcome is always the same.

Sometimes he lets her and Sam go back and forth, sometimes he rushes her. Usually he goes down shoving Sammy or Jo out of the way of an oncoming attack. Never once has he turned tail and run.

Nothing he does ever seems to matter.

They always lose – _he_ always loses. Bloody.

"Meg," Sam says, sounding like Dad as he steps forward. Gruff and unthreatened. Closing ranks.

Dean can see through the girl to the demon beneath. She shakes her head, _tsking_ arrogantly, the same ol' piece of shit he sent back to Hell, just in a shiny new wrapping. "Shouldn't have come here, boys."

First night Dean found himself back here he'd taken the shot at this moment, without warning, just to see what the element of surprise would get them. She flung him before the bullet hit her, straight through a storefront window, cracks of glass and bone mingling seamlessly and shocking him awake twisted in blankets on the dusty hardwood of Bobby's library with the screams of Sam, Ellen and Jo fading away as he got his bearings.

Now, Dean lets her run that bitch mouth a little longer, eyes scouring the otherwise deserted street for something that's so far gone unnoticed to jump into possible play. Anything to make this time go differently. A dark, winged shape moves ethereally through the storefront windows. It doesn't belong here, and he's never noticed it before, but he can't make out the figure. He swallows roughly. "Hell, I could say the same thing for you." The Colt knocks against his leg but he doesn't raise it, heart already thumping and stuttering at the thought of the hounds at her side.

Even if he hadn't lived this before, in reality and in a dozen dreams, he'd know those bitches were there, somehow. One of those things he can't make enough sense of to bring to his brother's attention.

She rocks on her heels as a knowing smile creeps across her face, lifting the corner of her mouth. "Didn't come here alone, Dean-o."

A massive, unseen paw splashes a puddle next to her boot, a throaty growl slices the air between them, and this is as far as Dean ever gets while still thinking clear-headedly.

No one else moves, or at least, not enough to show that they know there is real _danger_ near. They have books, picture and stories, but no one knows Hellhounds like he does.

It's not Option A for her to kill them. She's just the messenger, just here to _collect_ them and drag them to Lucifer, but that's one scenario Dean won't ever think to entertain. Winchesters don't run, but they don't lie down and die either. He doesn't lift the gun, just turns, eyes drifting over his brother's face and landing pleadingly on Jo's. "Go. Now."

She balks, eyes narrowing and grip tightening on her gun. "What?"

"Run." His voice breaks on the order and he gives Sam a rough shove for good measure.

Sam stumbles to a stubborn stop, because he won't run away any more than his brother will, and he won't even listen to sense in Dean's dreams. "Dean, what – "

"Hellhounds," he grits, not caring if Meg hears him.

He doesn't see it come at him from the side, driving him to the asphalt and stealing the air from his lungs with the impact against an unforgiving ground. Dean grunts a protest as the Colt goes skittering out of play against the curb, and Meg's laughing the whole damn time he's scrabbling, and failing, to regain his feet.

"Yeah, Dean." It's glee in her voice, pure as virgin snow. "Your favorite."

The hound shifts above him and he's suddenly pinned beneath it, weight perfectly balanced so that freeing himself is an impossibility, unless he's looking to be ripped to shreds. It wants him to. Wants Dean to struggle, wriggle, and attempt to throw the beast off of him. He feels the needlepoint prick of claws through layers of fabric, sharp and stinging but not stabbing. Not tearing.

Not yet.

"Dean!"

There's one mutt on him but Meg didn't bring one, she brought two, or three, and there are hot tears of a pain not yet felt welling in Dean's eyes as he cracks and begins to struggle vainly beneath the bulk of the hound's massive front paws on his chest. "No, Jo, don't – "

But she listens just as well as Sammy. They're _hunters._ The wind tosses her long hair as she advance, and the shotgun bucks in her hands as she fires at the space above Dean's head.

The Hellhound leaps away with a shrill, wounded yelp and Dean crabs back quickly, feels Sam's big hands pawing at his shoulders and encouraging him to find his feet, and his mouth goes dry and worthless. The order to get to safety twists his lips but no sound escapes.

Behind them, Meg laughs on.

It's different every time, and it comes at a different time each dream, but this moment always happens, and it's always the same. This moment of worthlessness and reckless abandonment of training and instinct and preservation of the people he's supposed to protect.

Dean's scared in a way he'd never thought to prepare for, and he fucks up. Every time.

He hears the angry snarl of the second hound as it leaps at Jo from its watchful perch on the sidewalk. Dean shoves up off of the street and launches his body at the empty space next to her, colliding solidly with something hot and heavy and he drags that snarling son of a bitch away from her, takes it all the way to the ground.

It spits and writhes and ends up on top before Dean can blink. The back of his head cracks against the asphalt and even if the blow _didn't_ steal his vision he wouldn't be able to see it, but he can _feel_ it, and its breath is a moist, fetid furnace blast against the side of his face as he turns away from invisible snapping jaws. He's weaponless in a laughable way, head spinning and arms shaking from the strain as he tries desperately to hold the hound at bay.

Above him, there's screaming and shotguns going off, and the beast jerks and whimpers each time it's hit, the panicked, furious death throes of its claws raking trenches in Dean's chest and side, and he howls to beat the hounds.

***********************************************************************

He wakes with a start and a gasp, to Sam leaning over and shaking the shit out of him, screaming hoarsely in his face.

"Wake up! _Dammit_ , Dean, wake – "

_"What?"_ Annoyance is first, but pain follows in a close, close second. Dean tenses and grits his teeth, the pain fiery and intense, rolling over his body like a succession of crashing waves as opposed to being currently isolated to any particular spot. He moves away from Sam, presses his cheek against the cooler comfort of a flattened pillow in an attempt to escape the agony but it follows. It grabs him, pulls him under and swallows him whole.

Sam grips his upper arm, tight and rough and dragging him back to the surface, where it's brighter, harsher, and it _hurts like hell._ "Dean, where is this…dude, hey, Dean. You're…you're bleeding, man. Stay still."

Dean squeezes his eyes shut, hauling in short breaths with a high-pitched hum and Sam won't let go of his arm. And then the sheet of pain finds a place to set up shop, as his brother is suddenly sticking hot pokers beneath his ribs.

" _Dammit_ , Sam," Dean forces through clenched teeth and shallow, ragged breaths that are starting to leave him feeling light-headed. The shadows on the walls look like dogs, like claws and teeth closing in and Dean lets his eyes fall closed once more. Instinct and reflex and _pain_ drag his fingers to feel out the source, but Sam is right there, grabbing his hand forcefully but not ungently and holding it at bay.

"Stop moving and let me…Dean, where the hell did this all _come_ from?"

The initial worry in Sam's voice fades away, replaced immediately by something frantic and appalled, but at the same time eerily calm. Taking charge and assessing the situation and triaging, because something's clearly not right and he's trained to deal with all manner of things not right.

_Understatement._ Dean's hand moves blindly, once again drifting up to the spot where the pain seems the worst and flapping weakly when it finds his brother's slick fingers blocking the way.

Sam's hand twists easily away and he grips Dean's wrist tightly, wrenching his groping fingers away from the spot of contention, the spot where it feels like he's been ripped apart, flesh split and muscle torn and none of it feels nice. "Dude, seriously. What the hell – " Sam gives up on questions, sucks in a harsh breath and releases Dean's arm.

An explosion of light steals the rest of his senses as Sam presses without warning against his chest, which is suddenly a mess of ice and fire with no distinguishing the two. A roar that sounds like howling picks up in his head and he holds his breath to keep from puking. His fingers dig into the mattress beneath him, clinging for all he's worth to what little consciousness he's managed to keep ahold of.

The light behind his eyes burns out, leaving everything dark and quiet but no less painful. Sam's tapping the side of his face, gripping Dean's jaw and forcing his head toward himself. The movement ratchets up the nausea, and his brother's fingers leave something hot and wet smeared across his cheek and neck. "You with me?"

"Yeah." Dean blinks, and on the third try his vision clears. Or, well enough.

Sam's face is white and his hair askew, eyes wide and shoulders high and tense. Dean grits his teeth and lifts his head enough to follow the rigid line of his brother's arms to where they end at those massive mitts pressing a wadded towel against Dean's chest. And he's pretty sure motel towels are white, or close enough, but this one appears patterned and red. Bloody smears mark Sammy's cheek and forearms, and when Dean swallows, he feels the tacky residue pull and shift on his own face and neck.

Calmed down a bit, but in no less amount of pain, Dean scrubs at his hot, itchy eyes with a cold, shaky hand, huffs out in an equally shaky voice, "son of a bitch."

"You're tellin' me." Sam gives him a gentle jostle with his elbow, not enough to increase his pain, but encourage his ongoing consciousness. "What the hell, dude?"

"I don't…I don't know." And he doesn't, because this doesn't make a lick of sense, and Dean's having a hard time thinking clearly. Where he was, where he is, what the hell's happened to him…it's all blending into a bloody, confusing, incredibly agonizing blur.

The pressure against his side eases, and Sam hisses. "Okay. I'm gonna have to close this, Dean. And sorry, man, but you're gonna feel it."

Dean swallows, already steeling himself for what he knows from a truckload of experience is gonna hurt like hell. "Awesome."

"Yeah." The pressure's back, and then Sam's grabbing and molding Dean's hands around the damp, sticky towel balled against his chest. "Hold this a sec."

"What? Where're you – "

"I gotta run out to the car, man. We didn't bring the thing in." There's a hysterical bark of a laugh on the heel of Sam's words. There was no need to for the first aid kit. They were in for the night, taking some time off in the middle of a probably-nothing hunt while Bobby searched for some answers.

Dean only blinks, or so he thought, and suddenly Sam is back, a warm, strong weight along his side that jolts his eyes open. "What happened?" he breathes. The pain is really starting to pick up steam now, sharp and hot and demanding all of his attention, even as he struggles to focus on anything else. The sounds of Sam rummaging for supplies, for some bandages, for the goddamn motherfucking needle he's about to become best friends with. Scissors first, sliding cool and hesitantly against his skin as Sam gets the obstruction of his shirt out of the way of his workspace.

"You tell me, Dean." Sam tosses the scissors aside on the bed and jerks his head toward the table under the window, where the laptop is open, where the chair is knocked to the floor and a spilled glass of cheap whiskey is still dripping over the edge to the carpet. "You fell asleep, and I was just sitting over there, and then all of a sudden you were screaming, and…"

Dean winces as Sam presses against an aggressively tender, particularly deep spot. "Was just a dream, Sammy."

"What was?" Sam's swift in his work and his questioning, all business now, grown right the fuck up into a kind of man Dean never saw coming out of that chubby little nerd. Taking command with a no-nonsense, war-torn attitude that he isn't used to seeing in his little brother.

An attitude he doesn't _want_ to get used to seeing.

Dean clenches his jaw against the sting of antiseptic against open skin and everything exposed underneath, draws a bead on the water-stained ceiling and refuses to look down at the mess of himself. When he feels up to forming words again, he says the first thing that comes to mind, no matter how asinine it sounds. "Thing was takin' a swipe at me when you woke me up."

Sam swallows, throat visibly working. Like he knows the answer before he asks the question, because if Dean's side looks anything like it feels, there's only one thing in this world or any other that leaves these kinds of marks. "What thing?"

"Hellhound."

Sam's head bobs as he digests that, and the next block of time passes in a bloody, tense, mute sort of way.

****************************************************************************

_To be continued..._


	5. Chapter Four

Steam slowly fills the small, cramped bathroom as Sam scrubs his hands for maybe the fifth time since he patted down the last strip of medical tape and threw a vaguely-conscious and incredibly pale Dean his best attempt an encouraging smile. For all his work, the standard motel soap bar has been reduced to a thin pinkish sliver in the dip of the basin, and watery splashes of Dean's blood mark the white porcelain.

Sam shuts off the tap, but can still feel the warm tackiness of his brother's blood sticking in the creases of his palms, wicking between his fingers and lingering in the scoop of each nail; a feeling and texture he's grown intimately familiar with over the years but will never actually get used to. He leans forward, bracing his hands on either side of the sink, and stares at his own white-faced reflection in the cloudy mirror. Eyes catching a smear of red across his cheek, he jerks upright and drags the last towel from the bar to rub roughly at the mark.

_Okay_ , he finally feels fit enough to start thinking. _What the FUCK?_

But Sam's steadfast and traditionally trustworthy mental functioning seems to be at some sort of standstill, his insides scraped hollow and just as raw and scoured as his hot, red hands. Hands too-recently coated in copious amounts of his brother's blood, and he's having trouble moving through the shock of what's just happened and into anything resembling coherent thought or theory about it.

Dean had knocked back a decent—though nothing eyebrow-raising or even necessarily out of the ordinary—amount of whiskey and fallen onto his bed fully clothed while Sam finished his own drink with small, obligatory sips at the table. Having hit a wall with this current hunt and waiting probably until morning for Bobby to call back with some idea as to how to move forward, he'd easily enough switched gears and turned from theorizing about their present gig to searching the web for signs of anything remotely devil-y or omen-like. He hadn't even flinched as Dean's first whiskey-soaked snore ripped through the small room, because research – particularly when concerning Lucifer and his whereabouts – is a much easier activity when his older, overly protective brother isn't hovering over his shoulder.

Sam knows his brother's been sleeping like shit lately – if he's been sleeping at all – and it had actually been something of a relief to hear evidence that the guy was so deeply out. He'd dimmed all lights in the room that weren't necessary to his work at the small table, and taken care to be as quiet as possible.

Regardless of all outward protestations to the contrary, Dean has become just as prone to nightmares as his little brother over the past year or so. Of _course_ he is; Sam can't imagine there's a way for someone to go through Hell's fire and come out the other side without suffering relentlessly restless nights and bad dreams. He might be lucky that a few nightmares is all he came away with. But despite his obvious discomfort, Dean rarely makes a sound; even in sleep he does his best not to bother Sam, to suffer as silently as possible. He's noticeably drinking more, almost like he can no longer catch a wink of sleep without the aid of a few glasses of whiskey, but it never seems to be enough. The only giveaway to the steadily increasing influx of nightmares has been the nightly tossing and turning, the muted grunts of distress that slip out in the hazy, dreamy state that exists between dead sleep and wakefulness. All this is completely new for Sam, who remembers growing up with a big brother who dropped like a stone and could sleep still and quiet enough to beat the dead. Until you came within swinging range, that is.

So the thrashing coming from across the room, the _swish_ of blankets caught beneath frenetically flailing limbs, wasn't anything out of the ordinary, and neither was the unchecked, dissatisfied murmur that reached Sam's ears and put him on edge. But when Dean started screaming, a frantic, agonized, and hoarse sound, he knew immediately that something was _wrong._ Something beyond nightmares of Hell and torture and loss.

He had lurched to Dean's side and found his brother arching away from the mattress, still shouting and writhing in pain, his chest slicked with a shocking amount of blood. The entire scene had been so reminiscent of that awful night in New Harmony that it had done well to strike Sam dumbly in his spot for a too-long moment before he was able to gather enough sense to grip Dean's shoulders, make a move to wake him – to _quiet_ that gut-wrenching sound – and then go to immediate work stopping the bleeding.

Of which there had been plenty.

Putting aside horrific memories of Hell and everything that has come to pass since, Sam's initial, visceral gut instinct and need for rational explanation tells him this has to be related to the case in some way. It has to be, because he can't entertain a brand new supernatural problem on his plate at the moment. Except…Tom Graham and the others in town – their hearts had given out. For all intents and purposes, they'd died peacefully in their sleep. Whatever has just happened to Dean while Sam's back was turned isn't in the same ballpark, or even in the same _area code._ These are deep, vicious and horrifyingly familiar slashes; anything but peaceful. The only thread of commonality between Dean's injuries and the deaths of the others is the state of sleep they'd been in at some point.

He's given Dean something for the pain but his brother is putting up one hell of a fight against the meds, clinging to this side of consciousness with an iron grip. Not that Sam can blame him. If _he'd_ just woken up in a pool of his own blood with an unexplainably shredded chest, he'd probably be more than a little reluctant to travel the path back to sleep any time soon.

A pained and horribly uncharacteristic whimper comes from the other room, as his brother stubbornly shifts about in bed and no doubt pulls at the stitches Sam has hastily but expertly sewn to keep Dean's blood and important bits of his insides where it all belongs.

Sam tosses the hand towel to the floor and spins in the tiny bathroom, drawn to the sound like a moth to the flame, and closes the distance between them with long, heavy strides. He's managed to move Dean from the blood-soaked covers of the bed he'd fallen asleep in to the bed Sam won't get the chance to sleep in, and the crescent-shaped crimson stain left behind is stomach-churning in size, but not _quite_ large enough to warrant Sam stuffing Dean into the backseat of the Impala and locating the nearest hospital. As far as he can tell, the bleeding's all but stopped. He does, however, wish they had something better to combat the pain, though he doubts Dean would take anything stronger at the moment, already fighting the need for sleep and rest like he is.

Sam stands between the beds and palms his forehead, feeling almost at a loss as his eyes dart from the concerning bloodstain on one mattress to where his brother lay on the other, trembling uncontrollably and riding out spasms of agony, holding sleep at bay by the mercy of his willpower and considerable pain threshold.

_What the FUCK?_ The thought darts across Sam's mind once more, though he feels no better-equipped to start throwing answers around than he did the first time.

Dean. That's the first step he needs to climb, the first piece in this clusterfuck of a puzzle that lay scattered across the tabletop of his mind.

"Y'all right, man?" Sam asks as he sinks with a weary sigh into the straight-backed chair he's dragged close to Dean's side. It's a pathetic and utterly stupid question, and he moves swiftly to make up for the absurdity of it by leaning forward and arranging the pillows behind his brother in a way he hopes will ease any of Dean's obvious and expected discomfort.

"No," Dean breathes tightly, because he's always been quiet about his pain and somewhat slippery with the truth, but when he does choose to answer Sam's inquiries, he does so with much more honesty ever since Hell. Something his perpetually curious little brother's not taken nearly enough advantage of. He winces and closes his eyes, and his entire body visibly tenses as he rides out a wave of pain radiating from his side.

Sam's fingers twitch to reach out, grab Dean's arm and anchor him until the pain passes, but his hand sits uselessly, like a heavy weight, against his thigh. He finds himself unable to move until his brother relaxes – a little, anyway, melting back against the scratchy blankets and thin mattress.

Dean sniffs, winces at the motion, and wrinkles his nose. He was right before; they haven't seen a cat since the afternoon spent interviewing witnesses at the apartment complex, but his eyes are still red and watery. Not that it matters much, and allergies are the least of either of their concerns right now, because Dean's about a quart low and sporting a couple dozen new sutures that are holding his chest together, he's wrapped in gauze and propped up on Sam's bed, and those bloodshot eyes are drooping from the effort he's putting into staying conscious.

He needs sleep. Needs REST, to get a reprieve from the pain and to heal these fresh, unexplainable wounds. Not to mention all of the ones he won't acknowledge, that aren't so fresh or visible, wounds he's been carrying on his heart and in his soul since Cas zapped them out of Carthage. Since Lucifer, Ellen, and Jo. Since they lost any glimmer of hope or advantage they'd fooled themselves into thinking they had.

But Dean can't risk sleep, clearly, and Sam sucks his bottom lip between his teeth, worrying it as he attempts once more to process everything that's just happened.

_"Was just a dream, Sammy."_

That's what Dean had said, but these slashes splitting his brother's chest and side beneath layers of thread and gauze didn't come from any dream. These are REAL, and bad, and startlingly familiar in nature, and just about the last goddamn thing Dean needs piled on right now.

Sam finds himself unable to meet Dean's pain-filled eyes another moment longer and sends his gaze roving the torn-apart landscape of the motel room. He spots the overturned glass still loosing a slow drip of spilled whiskey over the edge of the laminate-topped table, the tossed-aside bits of bloodied bandaging on the floor next to the bed, and the scraps of Dean's ruined black t-shirt crumbled in a shredded, crimson-stained pile near the blanketed bundle of his legs.

He starts to gather the evidence of violence in the room that _can_ be gathered, stuffed into the small plastic garbage can and set out of sight, gets as far as a handful of bloodied black cotton before he's dropped back stiffly into his seat with a frown.

Dean's senses pique to the lack of motion and he rolls his head against the pillow to better face Sam. It takes a moment for him to settle back into a position that approaches comfort, and his eyes, irritated red and glassy with pain, widen at his brother's change of expression. He nervously licks his lips, and asks hoarsely, "What?"

Sam shakes his head, holding the damp t-shirt aloft and studying the single, scissor-shorn tear down the front. His eyes dart between the tacky material and his brother's pale, bandaged chest. "Sure looked like something tagged you good, but it's just your…your shirt's not ripped."

Dean's hurt, but he's been a hunter nearly his entire life, and he needs answers just as badly as Sam does. Probably more so. His eyes narrow at the garment in his brother's hands. "What's that mean? What the hell was that?" It's an individual struggle for him to push out every word, like each one might be the last he ever manages. He blinks, slow and long, and his eyes snap back open with enough force to screw his face up into a wince. He's understandably wary of closing his eyes for longer than that, holding his wounded body's desperate plea for rest at bay with all he's got left in the tank, which can't be much.

"I don't know yet," Sam says softly, focusing on the shirt in his hands and allowing the obvious struggle before him to go on unacknowledged. He can do that much for his brother, can let the jackass keep up his strong, silent façade while Sam continues to worry that each day that passes is doing little more than killing Dean. Some days more literally and obviously than others. "But I think it's safe to say it has something to do with this case."

"S'not a case," Dean mumbles, sounding absolutely drained, and his right hand curls into a tight fist and presses into the mattress. The color falls out of his face and he bites down hard on his lower lip, huffs out a few ragged breaths before he can say more. "S'just Bobby havin' a hissy fit."

Sam smiles wanly, without an ounce of humor behind his expression or words. "Well, if it wasn't a case before, it sure as hell is now." He sets the bundle of fabric aside and rubs at his cheek, feeling the tacky itch of phantom blood drying there before realizing it's a very _real_ feeling of blood on his fingers, transferred from the cotton t-shirt. He swallows, stares down at the muddy red smears on his fingertips. "You need anything else?" he asks dumbly, to distract himself, and because they were raised on stupid questions and bad timing.

Dean shakes his head weakly and swallows. "No, m'all right." Then the dumbass actually presses against the mattress and makes a move like he thinks he's going to sit up, which would no doubt undo a lot of the hard work and energy Sam's just sewn into his chest.

Sam too easily pushes him back down to fully horizontal and rolls his eyes, twisting in his chair to finally right the fallen cup of whiskey and then slam the lid of the tossed first aid kit shut in an exhausted show of pent-up frustration. "You just said you weren't."

Dean lifts a shoulder, then hisses as the motion jars something inside that doesn't appreciate being jarred. "Things change."

"So what was it?" Sam prods, forgetting the bloody mess of the small room for the moment, and focusing fully on the bloody mess lying before him. He turns back and drops his heavy, once-more soiled hands to hang between his knees, because he can't imagine a situation where he'd be insensitive and cavalier with Dean's predicament to the point of excusing himself for the sake of washing up once more.

"What was…what?"

Whether it's a half-assed play at dodging the question or a show of honest, pained confusion, Sam doesn't know, and finds that it doesn't actually matter. He's not letting Dean off the hook so easily, not when this doesn't fit the pattern and he's just recently washed a concerning amount of the man's blood from his hands. "You said it was a Hellhound, in the dream. Was it, you know…" He started this, but how the hell is he supposed to finish this question? _Were you dreaming about Hell? About when you died, or when you almost died? When Jo stepped in and died in your place?_ A sacrifice that cemented her place among them, as it were.

Dean closes his eyes and rolls his head against Sam's meticulously stacked pillows, points his face at the blood-stained bathroom and moldy wall instead of his brother, because it's the only escape he's allowed or capable of in the moment. And the movement in itself is answer enough, because Sam knows from experience that nothing hits his big brother quite like the guilt of someone dying in his stead.

Sam sighs, sits back in his chair. He stares at the back of Dean's head, willing him to turn back and be open with him, for even the briefest of moments. "I've been dreaming about it, too."

Dean visibly tenses, overtaxed muscles in his wrapped back shuddering as he works to pull in steady breaths. When he speaks, his voice is throaty and strained. "Not like this, you haven't."

"No." Sam shakes his head gravely. "You're right. In my dreams, I don't let you take the shot on Lucifer."

The admission brings Dean rolling over, as slow and obviously painful a movement as it may be. "You don't _let_ me?" he asks, nearly challenges, but there's more strength behind his words than his body is able of back up at the moment. It's pretty clear from his paper-white face and wasted expression that he's just exhausted the range of motion he's going to be capable of for the foreseeable future.

Sam's hardly ever so lucky as to have his big brother in a position where he can say the things they've been actively avoiding without taking on the gamble of a door slamming between them or a punch being thrown, and he doesn't need much of an opening to take advantage. "I never should have…Dean, you were _two feet_ away from him – the one guy who's supposed be standing between the devil and what he wants." He sits back in his chair, picks at his fingernails and refuses to meet his Dean's glassy eyes. "There's no reason he didn't kill you, right then and there. Right in front of me."

"Sam…"

Sam doesn't need the benefit of eye contact to know Dean's asking him to stop, asking him to _stow the touchy-feely_ and shut the fuck up, but he's not going to let up off of the gas that easily. "You should be dead, Dean. You _know_ it." It might be a bit redundant, given their current predicament, but the truth in the thought's been gnawing away at Sam since the dust first settled at Bobby's place.

Dean releases a long sigh, coughs on the end and does his best to swallow his grunt of pain. "Well, so should you. Like, what, three, four times now? You can't think like this, Sammy. It'll kill you."

The son of a bitch waits for Sam to look up before he smiles, the motion lifting his ears but not reaching his eyes, and Sam can't help but return the motion. "You're an idiot."

"You keep saying that," Dean responds in an exaggerated complaint, bringing a seemingly lead-laden hand up to scrub at his irritated eyes and irritating nose.

_And somehow, you never seem to hear it._ Sam rubs once more at the drying swipes of blood on his fingertips, makes a sweeping gesture at Dean's wrapped chest. "Dean…"

Dean licks his dry lips and lifts an eyebrow in acknowledgement just as Sam's phone rings, the suddenness of the shrill electronic tone cutting through the quiet tension in the room. He trips to his feet and shoves things aside on the table until he locates the device.

His brother mumbles again behind him, softly and drunkenly, having finally faded to a level of incoherency Sam can't readily translate. His eyes seem to make the executive decision to fall closed and he reacts immediately, lids blowing wide open and even makes like he's going to scoot himself up in bed.

"Dude!" Sam chastises, checking the caller ID on the phone's screen. He holds a palm out toward his stubborn ass brother and says pleadingly, "It's Bobby. Just, don't move, okay?"

"Speaker," Dean grits out, having been reduced to a one-word kind of sentence structure and looking for any distraction he can grip as figuratively tightly as he's literally gripping the yellowish sheets he's lying atop.

Sam nods and takes the call, settling back into the chair and holding the phone between them. "Bobby, hey." There's some degree of weight in his chest that's lifted by the call, and a matching shaky relief sure to be heard in his voice.

_"Just wanted to check in with you boys, see if you've made any progress. I know it's gettin' late – "_

"Bobby," Sam interrupts, straightening in his seat. "It got Dean. We think."

The sudden silence on the other end of the call wraps Sam's heart in a vice and gives it a vicious squeeze. He's aware there was probably some easier and less abrupt way to get this particular ball rolling, but in the moment, it seems to have danced out of the reach of his exhausted mind.

_"What…s'he okay?"_

Dean clears his throat. "I'm fine, Bobby."

"You're really not," Sam says, leveling a glare at his brother before turning his attention back to the phone in his hand. "He's not, but he's alive."

Bobby sucks in a harsh breath. _"What happened?"_

Sam somehow forgets the smear of transferred blood across his fingertips and pushes his hand through his hair. "I don't have any idea, Bobby. He just…fell asleep, and then all of a sudden, uh…" Sam swallows. "Looks like something tried to tear him apart."

_"What sort of somethin'?"_

Sam meets Dean's squinted, pained gaze and finds himself silently, stupidly pleading with his big brother to let him off the hook here. But that's not at all fair, so he sacks up and tells Bobby, "Hellhound. He said he was dreaming about Hellhounds, and then…it's not great, but I got the bleeding stopped."

_"That's…different."_

It's not Bobby's words that scream of his concern, but his tone, and the clink of the neck of a whiskey bottle kissing the lip of a glass tumbler resonating loud and clear through the phone's small speaker.

"What the hell is this, Bobby? I mean, I figure we should assume it's connected to the case, but none of the other victims – " Sam stops, swallowing roughly as he catches himself identifying his brother as a _victim._ He offers Dean a strained, apologetic smile, then grips the phone and rises from the chair, taking the call off speaker and stepping away before continuing in a hushed voice. "The others didn't have any injuries or physical markings, and Dean…well…."

_"Didn't you say one of 'em had some bruising you wrote off?"_

"Yeah, okay, some scrapes and bruises, but, Bobby, this is a bit more than that."

_"You said he was a, a – oh, what the hell was it? Some sort of professional fighter, right? What if the injuries reflect the kind of dreams these sorry sons of bitches have been having?"_

Sam tilts his chin back. "And if that's the case, then Dean…"

_"I know it's not the answer you want, Sam, and it's hardly an answer at all, but your brother's injuries might be due to the life. To hunting. Dean's survived some pretty violent things. You both have. If this is something screwin' with folks through dreams, then whatever it is he's dreaming, reliving, it ain't normal."_

He hasn't yet heard a single flip of paper, and Sam feels his frustration rising. Bobby always has answers. "None of this is normal, Bobby!" he exclaims, drawing a wince from his brother across the small motel room. "What in the hell could _do_ something like this?"

Bobby swallows audibly, makes a guttural noise acknowledging the burn of a mouthful of whiskey hitting home. _"Well, I don't know, Sam. Why don't I just spin my handy Wheel of Monsters that Screw with Ya in Your Sleep?"_

"Bobby – "

_"We'll figure this out, kid. We always do."_

"Yeah."

_"But no matter what this is…Sam?"_

"Yeah," Sam responds again, in a voice just as tight as the grip he's got on the phone.

_"I wouldn't let 'im fall back asleep."_

****************************************************************************

_To be continued..._


	6. Chapter 5

Once Bobby disconnects the call on his end, the silent cell phone seems disproportionately heavy in Sam's tired, blood-stained hand, and he can't bear the weight of it any longer. He lets the device slip from his fingers, and doesn't much care where it lands.

The _snap-thud_ of the phone's casing connecting with the tabletop and bouncing to the carpet draws Dean's tired, pained gaze from where he's lying prone across the room, but Sam makes no explanation for the drop or the sound. Unable to see the benefit in excuses right now, he simply stares back at his brother, thinking the man looks about as horrible as Sam can remember ever seeing him.

_"I wouldn't let 'im fall back asleep."_

_Yeah_ , he thinks. _No shit._ Sam feels like there's a coil of rope inside of him that's coming unraveled. Like some fundamental thing that's meant to keep him together is fraying at both ends, and not good for anything anymore. He thinks that thing might be his brother.

_"I wouldn't let 'im fall back asleep."_

Not unless he wants to be scrubbing what's left of Dean's blood from his hands and face, Bobby might as well have said. From the goddamned _walls._

Sam fights the burn of frustrated, exhausted tears building behind his eyes, blinking roughly until they retreat. _Thanks for the tip, Bobby._

Hearing the man's voice, for even such a short time, looks to have done _some_ good for Dean, returned a bit of color to his pasty cheeks and a hint of light to his hollowed eyes. This hasn't nearly been their first rushed motel room patch job, but it's definitely one of the worst in Sam's recent memory, and Dean is in _bad shape._ There's just no pussyfooting around that fact.

He's lost a lot of blood and is white as a sheet – whiter than _these_ particular sheets – and the shadows cut by his drawn face are only exaggerated by the dim, yellowish lighting spewing from the lamps in the room. He's got his right arm folded lightly and protectively over the bulk of bandaging wrapped around his middle, and he's lying stiller than he's typically known for. It's a stillness that screams of exhaustion, confusion and an intense amount of _pain._

And even more so than that, of something akin to acceptance.

This uncharacteristic stillness of Dean – who not only tends to remain active when injured but oftentimes manages to be downright lethal without full use of all four limbs – is bad enough. But it's his dull, vacant expression that actually rocks Sam back a step, bumps him into the edge of the flimsy table and nearly sends the both of them to the floor in an uncoordinated crash.

You don't play chicken with Sam's brother, because Dean Winchester doesn't flinch. Not usually.

Most people wouldn't see it the way Sam can, but this look on Dean's face…this is a big damn flinch.

It's more than the stitches and the blood loss and whatever the hell else he may still have the wherewithal to conceal from Sam. He knows Dean is in the sort of bad shape that seeps beyond physical injury, the kind that finds an opening and burrows beneath skin, muscle and bone to affect the very thing that gets you up and moving in the morning. The guy's been taking punishing hits left and right lately, and he's been _dead_ more often than anyone has any business being, but he always gets back up.

Something about this time is different, in ways Sam _knows_ , but can't possibly hope to understand or define.

Closest he can figure, the last few years have just been too damn much for Dean – losing Dad and figuring out _how_ and _why_ ; Sam himself taking that final, fatal hit; the crossroads deal and the egg timer that followed them around for a goddamned _year_ , polluting every facet of their lives; _Hell_ , and coming back to a brother who was different from the jump and changed forever, who had been forced to spend four long months growing up without his hero; all of Sam's best intentions at assistance and redemption turning into nothing more than wishful thinking, ignorance and betrayal; Lucifer walking free. All of it has been piling on and adding up, and his brother is finally collapsing under the accumulated weight of loss and death and the myriad ways they've failed, right in front of Sam's eyes.

_They've_ failed, both of them, though not necessarily equally. Sam deserves top billing for some pretty monumental screw-ups himself lately, but Dean doesn't see it that way; he _never_ sees it that way. Because Dad somehow managed to have more of an effect on their dynamic as brothers and hunters than Sam would have ever given the man credit for. His death tore an indescribable chunk from Dean and shoved something brand new into the hole left in its wake, cemented the notion that he is now wholly responsible for his little brother and therefore _has_ to take the lead in even the little things, and certainly in the big stuff.

This run on Lucifer in Carthage sure as hell qualified as _the big stuff_ and, after a couple of boneheaded acquiescences on Sam's part and a lucky break that was maybe only lucky for him, ended in a failure of the largest kind. In tragedy, and even more pointless loss. Loss of hope that the Colt was their way out of this one, and loss of friends. Of _family._ It was the last straw, clearly; the final, fatal hit. Just as they'd meant it to be, and yet not at all how they'd planned.

Sam knew this was coming, had sensed it looming all the way back at Bobby's. Not _this_ , maybe; not these friggin' killer dreams and whatever the hell is causing them, but this fall of Dean's. He _knew_ it. But with Dean? Knowing is _less_ than half the battle, because he's all about mental locks and steely gazes and cowboying-up.

So Sam bites, and plays chicken, and stares at his brother staring right back at him as he runs through all of the things he _should_ be doing. He can't for the life of him settle on what he _will_ do, because he just doesn't know what will count for _shit_ anymore.

_"I wouldn't let 'im fall back asleep."_

Stone number one. Keep the jackass awake until Bobby scrums up the answer. Sam can surely manage that much, so long as the man makes it snappy.

His first inquiry would usually run somewhere along the lines of _how you doing_ or _you need anything_ , but he knows better than to expect much in the way of honesty in however Dean chooses to answer him on either front. One more appraising glance at his gruesomely pale brother and Sam figures the pit of shit they're currently in is deep enough that he can skip the formalities, so he steps closer to Dean's bedside and goes straight into, "What do you need?"

Despite his best efforts, even _that_ is an asinine question because, as the blood-splattered sink in the bathroom and the pitiful winding of gauze holding him together can attest to, Dean can't exactly _have_ the things he needs right now. The chill of the room is finally getting to him, or it's very possibly shock settling in; he needs rest to still the shivers suddenly wracking his body, and a handful or vialful of some hefty painkillers to combat the reasons why. He needs a hospital, and possibly – _probably_ – a transfusion. There's not much to be done about the less physical aspects of his predicament, and Sam knows they're no less dangerous.

But there's not nothing to be done. Antibiotics, at least, they can handle. Dean's torso had been laid pretty well open in the middle of an anything-but-pristine motel room, and while Sam had cleaned the cuts to the best of his very practiced ability, that didn't mean an infection was out of the question.

Dean snorts, and he might be amused by the absurdity of Sam's query – but he's certainly not amused by whatever his choice of response has done to his insides. He grimaces and tenses, presses a fist against the mattress as he rides a sizeable wave of pain. As he watches his brother turn a shade of white he didn't know existed, Sam doesn't know what the _fuck_ they're doing here.

It begins to rain, slow, fat drops that smack against the windowpane in a way that somehow serves to amplify the silence in the room. Sam's not typically one to be caught off-guard by storms, especially not in a part of the country not prone to an excess of rainfall in _December_ , but it seems that he's being caught off-guard all over the place these days. He turns his back on his brother, feeling the sting in the motion as he makes it, and goes about rummaging through the kit still on the table, hoping to close his fingers around something strong enough to help but not quite strong enough to knock Dean for a loop. Getting an antibiotic into Dean's system might literally be the _least_ Sam can do for his brother right now, but it's something.

Behind him, Dean weakly says, "'least they got me this time."

It's the first time he's spoken – or tried to – since the call with Bobby. His voice is so utterly _wrecked_ , the strangled sound of it turns a knife in Sam's heart before the actual words have a chance to do any damage. He turns, hands stuck inside the bag, and frowns down at his brother, hoping he's heard the man wrong. "What did you say?"

Dean locks those haunted eyes with Sam's for a beat, then swallows and turns his face away. "I said, at least they got _me._ " He's getting sloppy with pain, but manages to shove a bit of strength and volume behind the words, to ensure Sam's heard him properly this time.

The defeat in his voice is worse than the look in his eyes, worse than the blood left behind to stain Sam's hands where they shake inside the first aid bag. He drops his chin, clenches his jaw. "Don't say that."

"Why not?" Dean persists, thickly.

Sam slams the bag against the tabletop and spins on his heel. "Because you don't mean it." He can't imagine how Dean _could_ mean it, or just maybe doesn't want to. Then again – _God_ , that night before the run on Carthage, the man had sat at the table across from Sam and referred to himself a goddamned _game piece._ So all bets might be off here.

He doesn't know whether or not his brother's heard him; Dean keeps his face turned away and gives no indication either way, just looses a breath that rattles audibly inside his shredded chest.

"Dean?" Sam calls out, the thump of his heart picking up speed as he steps away from the table. _Keep the jackass awake._ "Dean, give me something, man." Tries to not make it sound like the plea it is.

Dean sighs and rolls slowly back, squaring his shoulders against the mattress with a wince. It takes him a moment to gather the strength to speak. "I'm here."

"Okay." Sam nods. "Okay, just…just stay that way. All right?" He forces a shaky laugh on the heel of his words, because Dean doesn't respond appropriately to _anything,_ least of all concern. As long as they can laugh about it, they'll make it. Beyond that, he doesn't actually know how he's supposed to keep his brother awake and out of harm's way until they figure out what they're hunting, not when he's already drooping where he lays and Sam can't get an accurate read on the amount of fight Dean's got left in the tank.

They can use the pain, he supposes as he finally finds the antibiotics in the kit, as grotesque as that sounds. It goes against everything he feels and wants to do for Dean, but Sam can't allow – can't _afford_ – for his brother to fall into a comfortable position right now. Dean seems to have figured out as much for himself, is already going about the sluggish, tense work of leveraging himself into as much of a sit as he can manage.

Sam is struck with a thought and pauses on his way to Dean's side, spinning the pill bottle in his hand to study the warnings and directives printed in tiny letters on the label. As expected, the directions warn against mixing the pills with alcohol, which shouldn't be a problem, and caffeine, which actually might. But he has to figure an upset stomach will win out over being sliced and diced in your sleep, pretty much every time.

Ellen would have been a stickler about it, probably. Wouldn't have let Dean get within striking distance of a single sip of coffee or beer until the bottle of pills was emptied as needed. He would have reached for a drink anyway and she would have smacked his hand, and it would have brought that hilariously affronted look to Dean's face that it seemed only she could wring from him. She would have flipped her hair and doted on Sam and the entire scene would have amused Jo in a way that confused everyone in the room.

It's possible they'll never quite know everything that was lost in Carthage.

Sam smiles sadly, and it brings Dean's eyebrows worming slowly together.

"You need a minute alone with those?" he asks, low and gravelly and not sounding at all like he's up to the daunting physical challenge of _not falling asleep._

"Hmm?" Sam blinks a bit, bringing the motel room and present situation into clarity. "Oh, here." He offers the bottle to his brother, who's gotten himself into a mostly upright lean against the headboard of his bed.

Dean's still got his arm wrapped around his middle, and sweat has broken out at his hairline from the effort of repositioning himself. He takes the bottle in a waxy, trembling hand and licks his dry lips.

"I'll get you some water," Sam says dumbly, and turns to the bathroom, knowing he'll have to face more evidence of his brother's spilled blood when he gets there.

_"'Least they got me this time."_

Dean's not going to go down without some kind of a fight, but Sam can't help but wonder if his big brother wouldn't actually care if he happened to lose this one.

***********************************************************************

Dean has always had the bad habit of ignoring an injury until it takes the ground out from under him. An alternatingly self-serving and self-destructive sort of habit that always drove Dad crazy, and still sends Sam into fits now and again. But mostly, the kid's taken to it well enough; so much so, in fact, that it's pretty much become standard operating procedure for their own special, bullheaded brand of Winchester triage – if you can still walk, you're fine enough.

There are always helping factors, of course. Sleep, for one. In his storied experience, there isn't a whole hell of a lot that can't be slept off if Sam'll leave him alone long enough. Whiskey, too, in significant quantities. But he can't risk sleep, obviously, and Sam's currently being a bitch about the whiskey, so it's becoming harder by the minute to ignore this particular brand of pain that's lancing through his body. Dean closes his eyes, tightening his fingers against his bandaged, bloodied middle as seemingly every muscle in his already-strung out body constricts in a way that steals his breath and resonates agony through each and every inch of him like a plucked guitar string.

_FUCK me._

Sammy had reacted quickly and did an admirable job with the stitches, but there's only so far a panicked, rushed patch job will take you, especially when you're in need of quite a bit more than what a trunk first aid kit can provide. Real claws or not, some serious damage has been done. Dean can feel it now, now that's been a few hours and the cloud of confusion has dissipated. Now that the initial, searing shock of the pain has begun to settle into a thready ache that pulses relentlessly with his own rapid, unsettling heartbeat. He can feel the burn in each ragged wound edge and things shifting inside with each breath, and the weakness that's slowly spreading through his entire body like a disease.

Sam's been keeping a deliberate sort of a distance across the room, but is shooting him these desperate, unguarded looks at regular intervals, like he's worried Dean might just fade away into nothing if he turns his back for too long. He checks his watch like he thinks it might run off on him, and seems to have some sort of hard-on for asking his brother exactly how much pain he's in. _Scale of one to ten, my ass, Sammy. Ten ain't nearly high enough._

They know Bobby's hitting the books on his end but, never one to be outdone, Sam's got his laptop booted up at the table, where he's been scouring his usual internet haunts for hours, scrawling cramped, crooked lines of probably useless notes onto an old legal pad. While Dean is usually quick enough to rib his little brother about the fact he hasn't been able to write legibly since he let that zombie girl break his hand, he just can't rustle up a joke at the moment. Sometime around 5AM, the kid had downed – and not shared – about a full pot's worth of coffee and turned that corner from exhausted to wired, clearly feeling a need to DO SOMETHING more than sit here and wait for a revelation to be handed down before his brother bites it.

Sammy's done that long vigil once already, and it really is unfair of Dean to give him the occasion to do so again. He knows that, but his wounded body is giving him more of a fight than he can presently combat. He feels a bit hollow, and strangely self-aware of it. Like he can somehow tell exactly how much blood he's lost and all of the places it's meant to be, all of the different systems it's supposed to be keeping running, and he doesn't at all have the strength to put on the show anymore.

Dean shoves up a bit against the headboard, and can't bite back a gasp when the pain inside reaches a new crescendo. Sweat trickles down from his temples at the effort, and he tries to focus on the throbbing in his chest to keep treading water.

Sam shoots him one of those horrified, anxious glances and opens his mouth like he's about to force Dean to assign another arbitrary number to the degree of pain he's just caused himself. He squashes the urge and keeps quiet, moves immediately to get Bobby back on the phone instead, dialing and setting the call to speaker before scooting the cell to the edge of table nearest Dean.

The sun's yet to make a real push at breaking through the rain-heavy clouds, and they've each pulled an all-nighter here. When Bobby comes on the line, the older man sounds tired and stressed – possibly more so than Dean's ever heard him.

_"All right."_ Dean can almost see Bobby parked in his wheelchair in the spot where his oversized rolling desk chair used to be, donning the same wrinkled, grease-stained clothes and filthy ball cap he's been in for the past two days, rubbing his forehead as he contemplates the near-full bottle of whiskey and partnering empty glass sprouting from the middle of his spread of books and journals. _"Where all did you boys get to out there?"_

"Morgue, local PD, scenes of the three deaths," Sam lists off, stretching in his chair and looking to rival the record Bobby's just set in the amount of stress released per word. He shakes his head and barks a short, unamused laugh. "I mean, you name it, Bobby."

A heavy, weary sigh manages to fill the room from the portal of the phone's small speaker. _"This ain't a coincidence. We've gotta assume you were made, both of ya."_

"Made by _what_ , Bobby," Dean presses, his tight, hoarse voice drawing the stare of his little brother. He's already gotten himself halfway there, and begins the too-slow process of rotating atop the bed in an effort to gain a little ground in the conversation. He grips the edge of the mattress, fully intending to stand, maybe even to move to the table, but Sam pins him in place with a glare.

_"There're a coupla leads I'm chasing down. Sorry to say I don't have anythin' solid enough to point you in any particular direction just yet."_

Sam throws his head back, exhaling toward the dimpled, water-stained ceiling of the room.

"Bobby," Dean says seriously, and a bit loudly, making sure his voice carries to the phone. "Scale of one to ten – " He pauses to shoot his brother a glare of his own. " – just how much danger is Sammy in here?" Something about his question has Sam shaking his head incredulously, and something tells Dean it isn't the sarcasm.

_"Funny enough, that might be the only answer I do have for ya."_

That sure draws Sam's wide-eyed, over-caffeinated attention back to the phone. Even so, it's somehow Dean who works up the strength first to ask, "What do you mean, Bobby?"

_"Well, likely none, believe it or not. Not so long as whatever this is has got its hooks in you, kid. The one constant seems to be that all of these nasty sons of bitches stick to one victim at a time."_

Dean meets Sam's eyes and, with a fair amount of effort, turns his wince into a tight smile, the motion feeling just as hollow as every other part of him. "All right. There you go. S'long as I'm alive, looks like you've got nothin' to worry about, Sammy."

Sam stares him down, chewing his lower lip. Running Sammy-sized calculations. Knowing the kid as they do, both Dean and Bobby wait patiently for him to finish whatever he's got working in that head of his. After a moment, he snatches his phone up from the table. "Bobby."

_"Yeah."_

"If I find out if this shit heap of a motel has a fax machine, can you send me some of what you're looking at? See if we can't speed this entire process up a bit?"

_"Yeah, 'course."_

"Great. I'll call you back in a sec." Sam disconnects the call and rises from the table. He runs a hand through his hair, down his face.

Dean frowns, leans back against the headboard and tries not to be so obvious about all of the ways that small motion has twisted him up inside. "What is it?"

"I'll have to, uh…I mean, you gonna be okay if I…"

Sam doesn't want to leave him here alone. Is _terrified_ to do so. Not because of what might happen while his back is turned, but what Dean might _allow_ to happen. And that's a realization that somehow hurts deeper and darker than anything else he's got on his plate at the moment. Dean's sense of self-preservation might not be at an all-time high right now, but he's not ready to clock out. Not just yet. Not with Sammy at so much risk, and certainly not like this.

"Sam," Dean says, digging into the reserves and drawing forth the tone he learned from his father. The one that even hot-headed, fast-mouthed Sam saw fit to mind. "If you've gotta leave me alone, you'd better do it now. Don't stand there wringin' your hands about it til it's too late."

Sam heeds the tone and nods, a fast, jerky motion. "Right. I'll, uh, make a run on the vending machines, too, while I'm out, all right? Get some food?" He moves to the door and pauses with his hand on the knob, looks back over his shoulder. "Fifteen minutes, Dean. Just…I swear it, okay? I'll be right back."

Dean swallows, jerks his chin. "So go already."

It feels like hours that Sammy's gone, though he knows it's not, because Dean counts off each and every one of those thirteen minutes as it ticks by on the clock at his bedside. There was really no cause for his brother to worry that he'd fall asleep while left alone, because he just _hurts_ too damn badly, and all over, for that to be a possibility.

A drink or two or twelve would surely deaden the pain a bit, but Sam's been making a very vocal fuss about the risk of the alcohol not only putting him to sleep, but having an adverse effect on the antibiotics he's been dumping into Dean's palm every four hours, worrying himself ragged about an infection taking hold like the shiny cherry on this particular sundae.

Dean's got pretty good instincts about this sort of thing, and he doesn't think he's gonna be around long enough for an infection to become any kind of serious problem, whether he can stay awake or not. He's sure to turn a corner of his own soon enough, and hit that point at which willpower is taken completely out of the equation.

But he's gotta try, for Sammy. Always for Sammy. He sniffs, motions to the stack of printouts in his brother's hands. "Gimme some of those." _Christ,_ is that his voice?

"Yeah, of course," Sam says quickly, parroting Bobby in that way they both have of agreeing when they damn well know it's not gonna make much of a difference. The paper copies are covered with irritatingly small, smudgy print, but the computer screen Sam's staring at is just too damn bright for his eyes, like sticking a hot poker clear through to his brain.

He winces, and Sam catches it, of course. Opens his mouth, closes it with a _clack._

Dean rolls his eyes, blinks roughly until the small print becomes clear enough to be useful. _Fuckin' THIRTY, Sammy, that make you happy? You wanna go dig the morphine outta the trunk and let me sleep this off?_

His breath hitches at the thought, becomes a tickle that starts behind his ribs and stretches up into his throat and before Dean can catch himself, he's rolling to the side and hacking miserably. The violent motions jars and tears at him, and startles Sam out of his chair to rush to his side.

Dean holds his brother at bay with a raised hand, and once he gets the cough under control, he's pretty sure he's swallowed back a decent amount of blood.

***********************************************************************

"Sam."

"Hmm."

_"Sam."_

Sam looks up, exhaling harshly as he turns his attention to his bedridden brother. " _What_ , Dean?" The annoyance in his tone isn't intentional, but merely a slip allowed by stress and exhaustion, and maybe a touch of cabin fever. Allowed because he's been awake and cooped up with Dean nearly forty-eight hours now, and Dean is on the wrong side of coming and going.

Or was, before now. "You wanna quit it with the pen?" Even as he sags where he sits, Dean raises his eyebrows, pulling an expression that almost covers the pain coloring his ashen face. He'd kicked the blankets to the foot of his bed and insisted on dragging a t-shirt over his blood-spotted bandages hours ago, and then a flannel over that, once it become it clear he was feeling the chill of the storm raging outside regardless of how hot the heater was kicking in the motel room. Even without that stark, visual evidence of the severity of his injuries, the average passerby would have no problem deducing there's something horribly wrong with him.

Sam tears his eyes away and glances down at the pen clutched in his right hand, thumb still poised over the clicker. "Oh. Sorry." He drops the pen to the tabletop, sighs loudly and scrubs at his tired eyes. They – well, mostly Sam – have been at it all day, turning up a big, steaming pile of not-a-goddamn-thing for their work.

"Sam."

"I put the pen down, okay?"

Dean's lip twitches upward, but the motion can't be forced to fit into the rest of the puzzle, and is instead completely at odds with the lines of pain around his shadowed eyes. "Just waitin' to see what you're gonna trade it for."

His voice is taking on a gauzy, faraway tone and cadence that snaps Sam to attention, no matter how mundane the topic may seem to be. "What are you talking about?"

"I'm talkin' about how you're always doin' something annoying."

Sam snorts, almost can't believe he's indulging the jackass. Then again, he doesn't really know any other way. "You're one to talk, Dean," he says, shaking his head.

Dean raises his hand in a vague gesture and does his best to pretend the motion doesn't send a flare of fire ripping through his injured chest and side. Sam sees it, all the same. "Is my inability to do more than _lay here_ and do nothing botherin' you?"

"Lie there," he responds, closing the lid of his laptop, because the glare of the screen is reflecting in his brother's pain-glazed gaze.

Dean's eyes relax gratefully, and he swallows. "What?"

"You're not _laying_ there," Sam persists, for no other reason than to provide a distraction. "You're lying there."

"You know, when _you_ do it? You sound like a pretentious ass." But he's laughing, kind of, and then coughing, rolling to the side and turning his back to Sam as he looses another one of those frightening, choking rasps that shakes his entire body.

Sam tenses, poised to rush to his brother's side, but Dean rolls back quickly enough, wiping his wrist across his mouth as his chest heaves in an irregular stutter that leaves him feeling a bit short of breath himself.

Dean narrows his eyes in the direction of the whiskey, but while Sam had caved earlier in the afternoon – just as they both knew he eventually would – he'd drawn the line at two small, well-spaced glasses before moving the bottle to a distance across the room Dean can't exactly reach at the moment. Enough to dull the edges but not completely quiet the pain, because it's become quite clear the pain is the only thing his brother's got in his corner right now. The pain, and Sam.

The storm picks up again, thunder clapping in the distance as Sam turns his own gaze to the bottle on the counter, and he quickly redirects his attention to the small coffee brewer instead. He's been able to stay ahead of Dean throughout the day, but he's clearly going to need a bit of assistance to continue keeping his brother's head above the water.

A soft rustle of paper sounds from the other side of the room, and Sam rotates in his chair just in time to catch sight of Dean slowly slumping, his hand slipping from its perch atop the printouts he'd pulled onto his lap.

Coffee is now the furthest thing from Sam's mind. He straightens in his chair, feeling a knot of dread form in his gut.

_"I wouldn't let 'im fall back asleep."_

"Dean," Sam calls across the room, though he knows already it's a lost cause.

Dean's head jerks up slightly, mouth twitching and throat working in response to Sam's voice, but it's a false alarm; his face goes quickly slack, chin dipping back down until it bumps against his chest. The stack on his lap comes completely apart, individual sheets sliding free of the pile and cascading slowly to the carpet.

"Okay, this can't be good," Sam mutters to himself, aloud, for no other reason than to bring some sound to the otherwise silent room, so maybe he won't feel so alone.

By the time he makes it to his brother's side, Dean has tipped sideways against the headboard, neck crooked at an awkward angle that's sure to give him all sorts of hell when he wakes up.

If Sam _can_ wake him up.

"Dean, man." His voice cracks, and it's not nearly loud enough to break his brother out of whatever nightmare he's inexplicably trapped in. The thunder draws nearer, _cracking_ and _clapping_ overhead, and Sam strives to match the crashing clouds in volume as his fingers dig into the meat of Dean's upper arms, giving him a rough shake. "Hey, Dean."

Nothing but the smallest hitch in Dean's breath, but it's brought about by the sights and sounds in his mind, and not at all in reaction to Sam's attempts at waking him.

He sucks in a harsh breath of his own and taps Dean's cheek. When he still gets no reaction, Sam hauls his arm back and slaps his brother with enough force to snap Dean's head back against the headboard and no doubt leave a mark.

Dean's lips part, and Sam recoils at the sight of blood in his brother's mouth. His eyes roll beneath his lids, and he starts muttering, orders first. "Go…run," on a breathy exhale full of stress and fear. And then names – the things that matter – whispered and laced with such concern it wrenches Sam's heart. "Sammy. Jo."

And Sam knows for sure that his brother is living the nightmare of their failures in Carthage all over again, and exactly where this is headed if he can't drag Dean back to the surface. He swallows, gagging a bit on what he can only assume is his own rapidly thumping heart attempting to crawl its way out of his throat. "Hey, hey, hey – _Dean_ – "

The muscles in Dean's neck cord as he arches away from where he's propped against the headboard, and his legs kick out as he slips down onto the lumpy, musty pillows he'd so strategically stacked behind his back in an attempt to assist Sam and Bobby with the research.

Sam's eyes blow wide with shock and fear, mouth gaping but he can't make a single word of either comfort or alarm come out. He grips tightly to the sleeves of Dean's shirt, doing what he can to assist his brother in sliding into a prone position atop the mattress, flapping a hand sideways to carelessly shove what remains of his books and papers out of the way. He doesn't know if the pounding in his head is the storm roiling outside or the thrum of his own galloping, panicked heart.

Dean suddenly screams, something hoarse and pained and seemingly _ripped_ out of him. Blood quickly saturates his t-shirt and spreads to stain the edges of his unbuttoned flannel, pools in the hollow of his throat as unseen claws once more tear his chest to ribbons beneath layers of clothing.

_Nonononononono –_

Sam reacts immediately, with a sickening degree of experience guiding his actions, and rips the sheets free from where they've gotten tangled beneath Dean's thrashing limbs. He presses a wad of cigarette and mothball-scented linens to the shredded landscape of his brother's torso, eliciting a cry of pain that twists everything inside of Sam that's still capable of feeling. Blood soaks the sheets, wicking and spreading quickly, and it already looks like too damn much to hope to come back from.

He _knows_ it's too damn much.

Dean's body seizes beneath Sam's frantic, flailing hands. He begins to gag, and choke, and coughs up even more blood that runs bright and thick down the curves of his chin and throat to join the appalling mess at his chest.

Sam manages a wordless, guttural growl of distress and defiance but can't form anything approaching a coherent thought or plan. There isn't time for an ambulance and not a whole hell of a lot trained professionals could do at this point even if there was; he can't think of anything to do to save his brother if he can't get him to wake up _right now_ , and even that might be pressing his luck at this point.

"Dean!" Sam shouts, right in the man's sweaty, chalk-white face, his voice breaking and sounding hopeless to his own ears.

Dean's fingers find and curl with bruising intensity around his forearm, but Sam knows he's not cognizant of the motion; it's just an instinctive reaction of his body, from the unrelenting onslaught of pain it's being put through. He suddenly goes tight and rigid as a board, and a rasping, shuttering exhale of breath leaves Dean's blue-tinged lips, and his limbs go limp.

"Dean, hey." Sam's voice seems to reverberate through the empty, quiet room as he jostles his brother, but does so gently. Knowingly. "Hey…"

Lips working in a wordless litany of protest and denial, Sam releases Dean and stumbles back until he trips into his own hastily vacated chair. It topples to the side with a crash he doesn't really hear as he drops onto his ass, and with a _pop_ of the transformer outside, the room is plunged in complete darkness at the same time as he hits the floor.

As the motel room is spastically lit up by bursts of lightning and rocked by thunder, Sam holds his shaky, bloody hands aloft and stares dumbly at the silhouette of his brother's blood-soaked, unmoving body.

***************************************************************************

_To be continued..._


	7. Chapter 6

It doesn't feel like waking.

For a long moment, it feels like kicking frantically to break a choppy surface from the deepest depths of an inky black lake, knowing both the danger of opening his mouth and drawing in that much-needed breath, and that he won't survive another second without it.

Then it feels very much like being gripped by the scruff of his neck and yanked harshly backward, caught in an instant of weightless disorientation with his feet off the ground…but he'd be hard-pressed to say exactly from where.

It feels like losing and gaining something all at the same time. It feels blisteringly, unbearably hot and then bone-chillingly cold and then hot again. All over. And strangely…welcome, yet horribly, _incredibly_ invasive.

And _painful._

Yeah, definitely painful.

Through it all, it feels…familiar.

Dean breaks the surface, finds his feet, or does whatever is precariously nestled between the two, and the breath he finally sucks in is so big and desperate and _needed,_ it hurts, pretty much everywhere. Bone, muscle, nerve ending, even skin – this pain isn't picky. His eyes blow open to total darkness and he immediately throws a panicked fist upward, fully expecting his hand to collide with a solid, rough panel of pine sealed airtight over his head.

Because last time he felt like this, last time the only sensation he could really register upon opening his eyes was an odd, aching pain that he can't quite assign to any specific point of origin, but seems to ring out from every corner of his body like a struck gong…he was in a coffin.

_His_ coffin.

Dean's fist swings unobstructed into thin air overhead and it takes a few hard blinks to begin to orient himself, but then his eyes go to work adjusting to the darkness engulfing him. With the assist of a sudden, sky-splitting crack of lightning that ignites his brain but brightens his surroundings for a brief moment, Dean identifies the hazy, easily recognizable landscape of a motel room, and catches sight of his even more recognizable brother lurching toward him.

"Dean?!"

"Sammy? What the – " Dean gives it a solid effort, but his voice is as much an abused abomination as Sam's is a breathless mess, hoarse and tight like he's screamed it away. He shifts tingling, sluggish legs and elbows up from the lumpy mattress, rotates at the waist with the reflexive intent of holding the approaching worrywart at bay, but a _boom_ of thunder sends the room tipping drunkenly, and the entire world drops away from beneath him.

His ears are ringing and he's slipping backwards into the black when Sam gathers a handful of shirtsleeve between his fingers, pinching the meat of Dean's upper arm in his haste and desperation to keep his brother somewhat upright.

"Dean, hey!"

He winces and tries to pull his arm out of Sammy's anxious hold, but finds himself seriously lacking in the strength department at the moment, and the kid only clings to him tighter.

"Dean, how…what's – I mean, are you… _okay?_ " Sam splutters admirably before settling on a final thought, and immediately recoils on the heel of his own question, like he understands how utterly absurd it is.

Because – NO, he's not fucking _okay._ He's…he _was_ …

Dean swallows and bobs his head slowly in the affirmative, because he can't possibly entertain getting into a discussion about the alternative. He angles his chin up at his brother, aims for a smile that ends up so forced that it seems to tug at all of his already aching corners. "Head rush," he rasps.

Sam leans in to hear, then runs the hand not currently clutching Dean's arm through his own hair and shakes his head.

Another perfectly-timed flash of lightning grants Dean only a mere glimpse of his little brother's face, but he somehow manages to read Sammy's expression as if he's had hours to study it – something akin to long-lost innocence, childishly wide-eyed and unguardedly elated. But also tentative, frightened, and definitely confused. Like he's never felt so removed from control of a situation, and he's waffling between wanting to slug Dean in the jaw and squeezing the life out of him. Likely the latter, if it wouldn't be ridiculously redundant at this point.

Dean's well-honed instincts note the increased time before the next clap of thunder. The storm is moving away, its damage done. His ability to get a clear read on his brother is fading with the passing of the rainstorm, as the fuzz at the edges of his vision sharpens and the ring in his ears recedes. Like everything is snapping back into place. Like he's snapping back into place.

He finds Sammy's eyes, twin glints in the dark room, and narrows his own gaze. "Was I…" Doesn't want to finish the question, because he doesn't need to hear the answer to know, and can't bear the thought of forcing Sam to say it.

Sam stares back, then nods slowly, once. But like he feels the gravity of the moment is owed more, he tightens his grip around Dean's arm and drops a low, wrecked, "yeah."

Dean takes a breath to digest that, wanting to brush his brother's hand away if he felt up to that sort of challenging coordination of his limbs, but he's not quite there yet. His free hand feels like a block of cement against his leg, and just _talking_ is taking it out of him. He tears his eyes away, moves his gaze to some indistinguishable black blob across the room that he's pretty sure is a piece of furniture and can't stare back, and bobs his head. "How long?"

"'Bout a minute. Maybe more." Sam's voice grows more constricted as he goes on, like in all the excitement of Dean's death and subsequent resurrection, he's forgotten how to breathe. There're spots and smears of what might be his blood on the kid's face. "Felt like…"

_Longer. Yeah, Sammy, I know._ Felt like forever that Sam had been gone in Cold Oak; not just one day. Not only a few hours. Dean winces as a fresh bolt of lightning illuminates the room, leaving a searing red blotch on his field of vision in its wake. This time, he doesn't even hear the thunder that follows. "S'the power out?"

"Yeah."

"Okay." That covers just about everything. Just about. Now the million dollar question. Dean finally wrenches his tingling arm free of Sammy's iron grip, and when his hand drops heavily to his chest it's into a fist-sized pool of still-warm blood.

His stomach churns and he scoots carefully to rest the back of his head against the headboard, knocking the piece of wood hollowly against the wall behind him. Even these small movements exhaust his already tapped energy well, and it takes a few breaths before he can ask, "what happened?"

***************************************************************************

What happened, Dean wants to know.

_What HAPPENED?_

_SHIT, Dean._ Sam might laugh if he thought himself capable of it, because what the _hell_ is he supposed to say to that? _You were DEAD, man, and now you're not._ He's got…nothing. Absolutely _nothing._ Seriously, what the FUCK?

No longer occupied with gripping his brother's arm, Sam's fingers twitch in the open air and he gapes, fumbling for an answer. For _any_ answer. But he can't find the words for it, all hope for coherent thought having been trampled senseless by his galloping heart.

Dean's only semi-upright, and only by the mercy of the headboard at his shoulder blades. He's blinking dinner plate-sized eyes and he's drenched in nearly an entire body's worth of blood – _his_ entire body's worth – but he seems FINE now. Relatively speaking. He's clearly wiped out, understandably confused and incredibly pale, but ALIVE.

And that's…the why, the _how_ – those things don't matter so much to Sam. Not yet, anyway. He has Dean back, and that's enough for now. Still, he has to put his mind at ease that the wounds are gone. The ones that opened up before his eyes and drained his brother's life away while he could do _nothing_ to stop it.

Dean makes a face, but is able to do little more than slap ineffectually at Sam's hands as he easily overpowers his big brother and drags the damp, bloody t-shirt away from his chest. The movement reveals no evidence of his careful stitching, and no more physical damage done than faint pink lines crisscrossing remarkably unbroken skin. The marks of an eager puppy's playful scratching, as opposed to a Hellhound's killing blows. "Huh."

Dean wrinkles his nose and smacks again at Sam's hand. "Get off me, man."

Sam complies, leaves Dean to straighten his shirts and whatever else may need it as he steps backward and rights his overturned chair. He drags it near the bed, sinking onto the seat with a sigh. "This is, uh…" He shakes his head. " _God_ , Dean. How do you _feel?_ "

Dean barks a laugh, then winces, rubs at a phantom – or so Sam can only hope – pain in his chest. "I dunno, Sammy," he says in a low voice meant to deter any further questioning, and stares down at the blood that's transferred to his fingertips.

It's a grotesque enough distraction, but Sam's not letting him get away that easily, not with something like _this._ Not with life and death and whatever the hell has just happened in between. "Okay, but we're gonna talk about this, right? I mean, _how_ are you, you know…?"

Dean pushes a hand through his hair, makes another dissatisfied face and wriggles atop the bed, like nothing feels comfortable, or even quite right. A feeling Sam thinks he might be able to remember for himself, if he tries hard enough. "Not like this hasn't happened before, Sammy."

"What're you…" Sam frowns, sits back. "You mean angels? You think this was _Cas?_ "

His brother rubs absently at his left shoulder. "Nah. Not Cas. But…some dick with wings." He sounds pretty sure. "Kinda recognize the feeling," Dean continues with a casual shrug, answering Sam's question before he even has the chance to ask. "S'not really one you forget."

It's a rare opportunity, this open, near-vulnerable look lingering in Dean's eyes. A chance for Sam to wring more information from his brother than he would typically provide without heavy provocation, or a decent amount of whiskey to loosen his lips. Sam leans forward in his chair, resting his forearms against his thighs, and clasps his hands together. "About that," he begins, before the drawbridge goes up for good. "We never talked about…I mean, you never really ever…"

"Spit it out, Sam," Dean orders, not unkindly. _You get one,_ his tired, narrowed eyes add, _so make it count._

Sam rises from his chair and crosses to the window, giving his brother some space. He knows Dean well enough to know he won't give up everything, and if Sam has a snowball's chance of getting an honest reaction here, he'd better not crowd the man, too. "What did it feel like?" he finally asks, possibly too quickly and eagerly, as much emboldened himself as he hopes Dean will be by the distance he's just put them between them. "Then, or, uh, just now?"

Dean takes a long, slow breath, rolling his eyes toward the water-stained ceiling before releasing it. "I dunno, Sammy." But he's pausing to collect his thoughts, attempting to organize them into some sort of explanation he can make his brother understand. Not blowing him off; not yet, anyway. "It felt like…like waiting til the last possible second, then taking the biggest damn breath of your life."

Sam nods and drags his teeth across his lower lip. He stares out the window into the parking lot and the darkened buildings across the way, taking note that the power outage doesn't seem to be confined to their motel. His sharp eyes catch a flash of gray movement weaving between the cars outside their room. "Did it hurt?"

"It didn't tickle."

The small, slender shape darts into the shadow of the Impala where it's parked out at the curb. Sam frowns, squinting through glass and heavy rain at the eyes of some animal reflecting back at him from beneath the car. Watching him.

"What is it?" Dean asks immediately, because he doesn't miss _anything,_ and seems desperate enough for a change in subject.

"S'just a cat or something." Sam shakes his head and sighs. "It's not important." He pulls away from the window, putting his back to the critter and the rain-streaked glass and facing his brother. "Dean, I – "

His cell phone rings and vibrates as it jumps atop the table, drawing both of their gazes and cutting off Sam's thought.

"Saved by the bell," Dean jokes, a pale, incredibly forced grin toying with his lips before disappearing from his expression completely.

With a hiccup of power and a harsh buzz from each fixture overhead, the lights in the room come back. Sam rolls his eyes. The timing of this entire night has been nothing short of impeccable.

"Mmm." Dean squints and jerks his head away from the sudden flare of the lamp on the bedside table. "Gross," he mutters, finally able to take full stock of himself in the light.

Sam can't disagree with him there. His brother looks like he tripped into a can of red paint, then flailed around in the mess for a bit. He shakes his head and scoops up the phone, desperate to tear his eyes away from the sight of all that blood in all the wrong places. "It's Bobby."

"Don't tell him, Sam."

Call already answered and phone lifted halfway to his ear, Sam pauses, gaping dumbly across the room at his big brother.

Dean's face is white, and deadly serious. He pushes himself into a seated position and swings his legs over the edge of the mattress. "That I…I mean it, Sammy," he adds, loud enough for just his brother to hear. "You can't tell him."

_"Sam?"_

"Yeah, Bobby, hey," Sam answers a bit shakily, bringing the phone the rest of the way to his ear. "We're here."

_"How's he doin,' kid?"_

Bobby's concern is dense and stiflingly, and for good reason, and Sam feels like an ass from just the thought of keeping the man in the dark about what's just transpired. "A lot better, actually," he says, the words not quite a lie, but feeling like one all the same.

_"What d'you mean?"_

"Oh, you know Dean. He bounces like a damn rubber ball." His brother eyes him pointedly from his spot on the bed, and Sam sets the call to speaker, and the phone on the table. "Hear for yourself."

"Hey, Bobby," Dean says, a bit too loudly, making sure his voice carries to the device. Sam would think he was overcompensating for some lingering sense of weakness and instability, evidenced by the slight tremble in his brother's arms as he shoves off of the bed to his feet. "Just needed to get some rest. I'm back in the game now, hundred percent."

Sam's an expert in all things Dean, and he can't help feeling the words are more for his benefit than Bobby's, and another overcompensation. But at the same time, he can't argue that Dean's more or less physically fine. "You heard the man," he forcibly agrees, crossing his arms and narrowing his eyes at his brother.

_"All right. Well, it's about time you got your lazy ass to work, boy."_

Bobby's slow, deliberate tone lets Sam know that he's obviously not buying either of their performances, but that's not a discussion to take place over the phone. Possibly not one to take place with Dean present at all.

Dean rolls his eyes, wipes a bloody palm along the thigh of his jeans. "We got work to do?"

_"Maybe. You boys ever hear of Morpheus?"_

"You mean the dude from 'The Matrix'?" Dean asks with a frown. He sniffs, runs the back of his hand under his nose.

_"No, you idjit."_

Sam knows the pointed show of exasperation is mostly just that – a show. One meant to cover Bobby's anxiety that he's hundreds of miles away and can only be useful over the phone. That he once again can't fight at their side. That he _knows_ there's something going on he's not yet been clued in on. "The Greek god of dreams, right?" he interjects, before either of these two overgrown children can get another smartass comment in. "He appeared in Ovid's 'Metamorphoses,' and has the ability to mimic any human form to pop up in a person's dreams, though his true form is a, uh, some kind of winged daemon."

"Seriously, Sam." Dean gives a slow shake of his head. "Could you geek any harder?"

"One of these days, you're gonna thank me for it." Sam takes a page from Bobby's book, rolling his eyes half-heartedly at his brother before returning his attention to the phone. He leans over the table, bracing his weight on both hands. "Bobby, are you saying this has all been the work of the Greek god of dreams?"

There's some shuffling and light mumbling Sam can't quite make out before Bobby's voice comes back loud and clear. _"No, it's not likely Morpheus himself, but it could be one of his siblings, the Oneiroi. Now, they're less defined in description, but likely live mostly in the dream world, appearing only in our world as some kind of…animal familiar."_

"Get to the good stuff, Bobby," Dean prods, scrubbing at his eyes.

_"Well, sometimes they were known to take it upon themselves to shape folk's dreams to their liking, for all manner of reasons. According to the lore, it wasn't completely unusually for a person who'd been touched by the Oneiroi to wake up with scrapes or bruises matchin' what they experienced in the dreams. Says here that some may even latch onto a vulnerable subconscious, give the dreamer a chance to relive and change certain events he's got stuck in his mind."_

"Okay, but why?" Dean crosses his arms and reverses the motion immediately, grimacing down at his bloody chest and arms. "That wouldn't change anything that happened outside of the dream."

_"Well, let me check my giant manual of why demigods do all the shit they do. Oh, wait, I don't have one."_ The man's short-tempered to begin with, and even more in concern, same as them all.

Sensing danger ahead, Dean pats the air with one bloody hand, keeps the limb aloft. "All right, all right."

"Okay, but in Greek mythology, these things have always been good, or in the very least, amoral," Sam says, steering the conversation back into a direction that's helpful. "They don't usually _kill_ people, Bobby, so why would one start now?"

_"Well, according to the lore, there are a lot of these things, and they're likely spread all over the globe by now. It's possible at least one's gone rogue over the years. Wouldn't exactly be the first time some ancient creature up 'n changed its tune."_

Sam drags his fingers through his hair and gives Dean a glance. "That's…that's great. A rogue demigod." He blows out a breath. "But why go evil and start killing people?"

_"It might not be. Evil, that is."_

"What? Bobby, you just said – "

_"I know what I just said, Sam, but we also just agreed these things are usually amoral. Its intent might not be malicious. Could be that it's toyin' with ya, or just curious."_

"This is curiosity?" Sam asks incredulously.

_"Could be, Sam. It could be using dreams to force people to relive events they regret, see how they'd change things if they had the chance."_

Sam raises his eyebrows at his brother. "You've been the one with the dreams, man. Any of that sound close?"

"Little too close for comfort, actually," Dean mutters, pressing a hand to his chest only to draw it away with another expression of disgust. He throws his arms out and takes long, awkward steps back to his bed. He stoops and grabs his duffel, tosses it to the bedspread and pulls out a change of clothes, pausing only to sneeze into his shoulder.

"Bobby, hold up a sec." Sam frowns and taps at his phone, muting the call, then pulls away from the table. "Where are you going?"

Dean raises his eyebrows, gestures down to his bloody clothing. "To take a shower, Sam. Despite…ya know, _this_ , I've been in that bed for the better part of two days and I'm pretty sure I smell like it." He grabs up the clean t-shirt and jeans, throws a hand back toward the phone. "You two geniuses figure out how to kill this thing before I get out, beers are on me."

"Dean – "

"No, Sam," Dean says forcefully. "We need to put together a plan, _now._ Before this demigod, or _whatever,_ decides to take a swing at you next, 'cause that ain't happening."

_I'm not losing you, too,_ is what he means, Sam knows. He nods. "Okay. We'll figure it out."

Dean clenches his jaw, jerks his chin and wrinkles his nose, sniffing again. "You've got fifteen minutes."

**************************************************************************

Dean pushes the bathroom door shut with a soft _click,_ then staggers forward and collapses onto a palm on the countertop. _Head rush. Yeah, no shit._

Once the room stops spinning, his eyes catch sight of the bloody smear left from his fingers and he jerks away, thankfully keeping his balance and not crashing through the door and back into the main room. Because he figures Sammy would probably have something to say about that.

He stares down at the bloody mess on the counter, rubbing tacky fingertips together. _His_ blood, coating his hands and soaking his shirts, yet he doesn't feel like the vital fluid is missing inside. Dean knows what that feels like – what it _felt_ like, only, what, _minutes_ ago? _Is that RIGHT?_

He raises his eyes, and, _God,_ but his reflection is a frightening, barely recognizable sight – dark smears of blood on his chin and neck, saturating his flannel and the gray cotton of his t-shirt. Breath quickening, Dean reaches to run the water in the shower, hot as possible, full pressure, and then hastily strips out of the button-down, leaving more gory marks along his hands and forearms.

_Some dick with wings,_ he'd told Sam. _Not Cas._

Because Cas is MIA at the moment, doing the angelic emo pout and keeping a deliberate sort of distance since the events of Carthage, one Dean had previously thought was reserved solely for John Winchester. Cut off from heaven with no mojo to speak of, which is really a ball buster when you're reeling from a concussion and stepping gingerly around the icy ragging of at least one broken rib. _Devil packs a wallop._

He sneezes again as he probes at the spot in his ribcage, finds some lingering tenderness there. Angling his chin into the light, Dean spots the healing mark on his left temple from the matching hit he took from Lucifer back in Carthage. And closer to his hairline, the thin white scar from the rugaru, also delivered in Carthage.

So, at least he knows this isn't like last time. Whoever had grabbed him from wherever-the-hell had been efficient and thrifty in his saving grace. Healed the fatal wounds and put life back into his body, but hadn't constructed him a brand-new, baby-ass smooth one.

Dean frowns at his reflection, not doing the pale, blood-streaked face in the mirror any favors, and pulls away from the counter, dragging up the sleeve of his t-shirt. There's no sign of a blistering handprint, but he doesn't know what that means. There's a yawning gap in his memory, but whether it was filled with harps or hellfire, he's got no friggin' clue.

He slams a frustrated fist against the counter, rattling the thin mirror in its frame. "Son of a bitch," he seethes quietly. _Why ME?_

Because they've got plans for him, the angels. He's their weapon. Their fucking prized pig. And they'll send him off to slaughter and bring him back as many times as it takes to make their point.

Dean has no power here. No control. No reason for being, or fighting, beyond what the angels want.

And his apparent umbrella of protection doesn't extend past this motel room. They'll save Sammy, sure, to keep Dean cooperative, and so that they get their war. But what of Bobby, stuck in that godforsaken chair for the rest of his life because he was STRONG? What of Ellen, and Jo? Sacrificial lambs for the side of good, and Dean is the one they save, over and over. Damning him when they do, over and over.

He's not strong. Not as strong as he needs to be, or the angels want him to be, or Sammy thinks he is. The strong don't fail, not like he does, not over and over.

He's alive. That's it.

_Consider your point made, asshats._

He's alive, but he shouldn't be. Again. Nine fucking lives, like one that crazy lady's cats.

Dean sneezes on cue with the thought, then pauses, dropping both hands to frame the shallow basin of the sink. "Shit," he says aloud to himself.

They walked right into this thing's playhouse. And it marked him. Marked _them._ Probably thinks he's dead, as he should be, and that means Sammy's next in line.

_Well, fuck you, you fluffy little son of a bitch._

Dean whirls in the small bathroom and throws open the door. Sam startles, nearly falls backwards out of his chair from either the motion of the door whipping violently open or the sight of his brother standing on the threshold still looking something like a victim in a slasher flick.

The kid recovers quickly enough. "What the – I thought we had fifteen minutes? And that you were showering?"

"It's the cat," Dean says, resisting the urge to rub at his suddenly dry, itchy eyes.

Sam frowns, gaze darting toward the motel room's window. "What?"

_"The what?"_

Dean steps forward, jabbing a finger down toward the phone and the tinny voice seconding Sam's thought. "Bobby said this thing probably has some kind of animal familiar to walk around in our world?" Dean waits for his brother's nod. "It's the goddamn _cat,_ Sam."

****************************************************************************

_To be continued..._


	8. Chapter 7

_"This is curiosity?"_

Bobby pinches the bridge of his nose, breathing around the punishing railroad spike of a headache that comes from minimal sleep and maximum stress chased with so many damn _questions._ Jesus, but this boy would have merely _annoyed_ his opposing attorneys into submission.

He chastises himself for the unfair thought and sighs, drawing his papers into something of an organized heap on the wide desktop. "Could be, Sam," he answers simply, for lack of anything more definitive to offer. "It could be using dreams to force people to relive events they regret, see how they'd change things if they had the chance."

Sam's voice lowers and echoes slightly as he turns away from wherever he's got the phone. _"You've been the one with the dreams, man. Any of that sound close?"_

 _The one who was targeted,_ Bobby easily translates. _The one who's been radiatin' pain, regret and vulnerability like a damn neon sign._ He pulls off his hat and scratches roughly at the crown of his head.

These boys shouldn't have gone in blind. He shouldn't have _sent_ them in blind, just to get them out of his kitchen and hair. Bobby immediately notes the irony in his thoughts, acknowledges the inescapable carousel of guilt, grief and regret living this life has them all trapped in. And nothing good ever seems to come from it, just fighting until the fight is finally done.

_"Little too close for comfort, actually."_

The response is faraway, not just from the receiver of the phone but in tone, and Bobby has to strain to hear it. There's shuffling and a loud sneeze, and then Sam is back on the line, speaking with seemingly unwarranted urgency.

_"Bobby, hold up a sec."_

The line goes silent, muted on the other end, where a conversation is taking place in which he's uninvited and unwelcome. Bobby absorbs the sting and replaces his cap, narrows his eyes at the open book in front of him, staring without comprehension at the faded text.

At least he can take some comfort in the fact that Dean sounds better – a lot better, actually, than he had before or he even _should,_ given the last update he'd received from Sam – but noticeably off. The obvious pain that had previously coated and slowed the kid's speech seems all but gone but in its place is something else, something Bobby can't quite put his finger on. Both boys are clearly shaken and covering for it, but badly. Out of form. Dean might fancy himself some sort of conman, but Bobby's got him beat all day, isn't for a second fooled by this show of _fine_ being put on for his benefit.

There's a harsh pickup of background noise as the line comes back to life; an electronic hum, a rustling of clothes. Sounds of nervous shifting, and maybe the knock of knuckles against a cheap tabletop.

Bobby might be getting on in age but he ain't _deaf,_ and Sam's hesitance and _hurt_ are so palpable he can easily uncover them in the silence over the open phone line. So much so that he finds it in himself to let it go without comment that he'd just been dropped from the conversation.

He waits a moment longer, then nudges the kid in the direction of sharing with a soft, simple, "Sam."

The not-quite-silence yawns on for another beat before Sam clears his throat.

_"Yeah, I'm here."_

The singularity of his phrasing isn't lost on Bobby. "Dean?"

_"He, uh…he's taking a shower."_

It's a tight, solemn utterance, the kind that's stifling some horrible secret buried beneath it. His tone signifies a verbal war of intention; an admission and a refusal, permission as well as denial. It's one that's unique to this already fairly unique young man, and means Sam's sure got something to say, something important clawing desperately to be heard, but he's clearly been forbidden to speak on the matter. Something he shouldn't say, but will – in the right setting, to the right set of ears, if prodded in the right direction. Sam's as much a locked safe as his brother, and it takes a special bit of maneuvering and know-how, but he's more prone to being cracked open here and there.

Bobby takes his cue, pooling together years – hell, near-decades – of experience in dealing with and taking care of these boys like they're his own, though there was once a time he didn't have a _damn_ clue what that meant. "Sam," he says. Low, calm, the first _click_ in the combination of this particular safe.

But still, Sam takes his time in coming around, struggling _so damn hard_ to do whatever he's promised his fool brother.

_"It's okay, Bobby. Really. Everything is…it's fine."_

Adrenaline is wearing down, and exhaustion is taking a turn at the wheel. Sam sounds weary, like he's finally found the last few inches of whatever frayed rope he'd been clinging to the past few days, his grip mere moments from slipping away entirely.

 _Just needed to get some rest,_ Dean had said, firmly and not looking to welcome argument or further inquiry. _I'm back in the game now, hundred percent._

Well, hundred percent, Bobby ain't buying it. "What d'you mean fine?"

The sound that comes from Sam has to be unintentional – a humorless, pained bark of not-quite laughter that ties Bobby's gut into a knot and leaves his fingers twitching for a glass of something dark and strong between them.

_"I mean fine. Or…mostly fine, I guess. I mean, he's okay. Dean's…he's not hurt anymore."_

Bobby's eyebrows arch beneath the tattered brim of his cap. Last time he'd checked in with them, Dean had been hurt, bad. Torn up by the intangible claws of the Hellhounds in his dream. He hasn't seen the wounds – not these particular ones – but he knows all-too-well exactly what those hounds do, and that's not damage you can _sleep_ off. The kid had been holding on, at best.

"Sam," Bobby says, then waits a beat to be sure he has the boy's attention. "What happened?"

The line stays quiet, and he can imagine the way Sam looks on the other end: chewing his lip and throwing apprehensive glances in the direction of the thin bathroom door separating him from his idiot brother.

_"Bobby, I…I only turned away for a minute, and he fell asleep, and – "_

Sam blows out a fatigued breath, the kind that indicates an exhausted mind, a fully frayed rope, and a cracked safe.

_"It was like New Harmony all over again, Bobby. Jesus, there was so much blood and he wouldn't wake up, and there was nothing I could do. Nothing except just…just WATCH, as he…"_

He doesn't get it at first; it takes a moment to connect the horrifying dots. It's the drink, he thinks, or the lack of it. The whiskey slows some men down, makes 'em sloppy. Not Bobby. It sharpens him up. Helps bring the picture into focus, but he'd scaled it back the last couple of nights, for his boys.

When the implications of Sam's words hit him, it sobers him up quickly enough that he could have afforded that last glass after all. Maybe even polished off the rest of the bottle. "Sam," he breathes, heavily. "Did – " He can't bear finishing the question, for either of their sakes.

_"It was – it was just for a minute, I think. Wasn't really, uh…but, yeah, he…yeah."_

"How?" Bobby asks, trying to keep the accusation out of his tone, but people don't just _die_ and pop right back into the world. Not without help, and plenty of strings attached. Not without some debt needing to be paid to balance the scales.

_"Um, angels? We think? At least, Dean seems pretty sure. Said he recognizes the, uh…the feeling."_

Of being resurrected? How many people can claim _that?_

 _Dammit, Dean._ More angels, sticking their grubby, winged paws into the lives of his boys. But Bobby can't argue the relief he feels in knowing Sam had nothing to do with this. He drags a hand down his face and reaches for the bottle of whiskey, upends what's left into his glass. "What does he remember?"

_"I didn't…I didn't even ask. JESUS, Bobby, I just, uh…"_

Bobby's not positive either of them was referring to the nightmare – the one that _killed his boy_ – but he figures that's where their focus should be, if they want to put an end to this thing. He sort of wishes there was a way for him to get into the action, wrap his hands around the bastard and kill it himself. "We need more information from 'im, 'bout the dream. See if there's anything – " He gulps a mouthful of whiskey, relishes the trail of fire it cuts as he swallows. " – anything we can use to gut this son of a bitch."

_"That might be easier said than – what the – I thought we had fifteen minutes? And that you were showering?"_

_"It's the cat."_

_"What?"_

Bobby perks to the sound of Dean's clear, strong voice, but frowns at his words. He sets aside the too-familiar urge to throttle the kid and sticks to the task at hand. "The what?"

 _"Bobby said this thing probably has some kind of animal familiar to walk around in our world? It's the goddamn_ cat, _Sam."_

Dean never lies down on the job, and he'd clearly been thinking this through while he and Sam put the hunt to the side and had their little heart-to-heart. Bobby's overcome with a rush of very specific anger, the likes of which he hasn't felt since he cocked a shotgun at the boys' father so many years ago. _There's more to this life than the_ job, _kid._

This job will, and has, and surely will again _kill_ these boys. And Dean won't listen. He won't _ever_ listen, and Bobby feels horribly, nauseatingly sure that Sam hasn't yet buried his brother for the last time.

Maybe one day he'll sit the bullheaded jackass down and beat this whole martyr complex out of him, if that's what it takes. Though, all things considered, it's possible he doesn't really have all that much room to talk, sitting in this wretched chair the way he is because he stepped in front of a bullet for the dumbass. Or blade, as it were.

But first thing's first – a problem he maybe _can_ solve. "What cat are you idjits talkin' about? Addin' a pet to the family?"

_"Uh, no. It's just this nutty woman's cat at the apartment complex when we were first taking witness statements. Had kind of a thing for Dean."_

"Okay," Bobby comments slowly. "That's thin."

 _"It was here, Bobby. Tonight. Sam said he saw it outside the room. Don't look at me like that, Sammy, I know that fluffy little fucker's been hangin' around. I can barely friggin' breathe."_ Another rocketing sneeze punctuates Dean's statement. _"Bobby, what happens if we gank the cat?"_ He sounds particularly motivated towards violence, allergies notwithstanding.

Bobby rubs a palm along his beard, calloused skin scratching against the coarse hair. He narrows his eyes at a point across the dim library as he thinks back over everything he's read the past couple of hours. But the whiskey finally slows his mind a step, and he has to resort to notes, grabs up the legal pad next to his book and narrows his gaze down at his own cramped scrawls. "Killing the Oneiroi in its familiar form would take it out of this world and keep it from marking any new victims, but it'd still be able to torture and kill anyone whose dreams it already has access to." He sighs. "I'm guessin' that includes the both of you. And it's only a matter of time before this thing finds a way to regain its familiar form and starts markin' people all over again."

_"Super."_

Sam seems to be taking the information from a slightly calmer, simpler standpoint. Almost business-like. Numb. _"Okay. Then if we can't kill the…Oneiroi, in its familiar form, how can we kill it?"_

Back to the questions. The both of them, impatient as their father, thinking these centuries-old lore books come coded, numbered and indexed exactly to suit their needs. What it is, what it wants, how to kill it. Something like that certainly would have been handy when the devil popped onto their radar. Bobby's fingers tighten around his glass, and he loosens his suggestion with another long drink. "You're gonna have to kill it in a dream."

_"Bobby. Come on."_

"Wish I had somethin' easier for ya, Sam, but if this thing is one of the Oneiroi, then the lore all points the same way."

 _"In a DREAM."_ Dean barks, voice thick. _"You're shittin' me, Bobby. Sure seemed to me that this thing's got home field advantage in dreams. I mean, how do we even DO that?"_

Bobby sighs, flops a hand down flat against the pages of his book. He taps his fingertips against the desktop and contemplates the empty whiskey bottle. _Gonna need a refill._ "Give me…gimme twenty minutes. I'll have somethin' for ya by then."

_"Yeah, okay. Thanks, Bobby."_

The gratitude's never an afterthought, not with Sam.

Before he disconnects the call, Bobby hears Dean sniff loudly and chase it with a wet cough.

_"You know, I still kinda wanna kill the cat."_

***********************************************************************

It's been almost an hour since Dean, you know, _died,_ and everything still feels…off, just enough to notice. Colors bleeding into one another, sounds in the background that don't make sense in the cramped motel room, and he has to strain sometimes to hear Sammy through the odd, muted din. His head is _pounding,_ mercilessly, and his skin seems warm and tingly and loose on his bones, a meat suit that doesn't fit quite right. Like it's not really _his,_ or maybe like he just hasn't filled himself out again since rushing back inside. He feels as though he's lost a step and hasn't caught up to the right time or place, and isn't where he's supposed to be.

But this is exactly where he's expected to be. Where they _want_ him to be.

It's another achingly familiar feeling of being but not really belonging, and it tugs at those wounded strings inside that Dean won't dare allow to unravel. And it's just one more thing he can't talk to his brother about. There's no way Sammy could understand, and he's _fine,_ really. It'll walk off, eventually. This is just more unimportant shit the kid doesn't need to hear or worry himself sick about.

But, _God,_ he could sleep for a week. But only after the threat is neutralized. After Sam is safe.

Dean steps out of the steamy bathroom to find himself the subject of immediate, intense scrutiny, Sam straightening in his chair and narrowing his eyes from across the room. And, sure, all things considered, he figures he's got it coming. He stops on the threshold and drops his hands to his sides, awaiting the inevitable, overwhelmingly emotional eruption of Mount Sam.

Sam worries his bottom lip and, surprisingly enough, chooses not to launch a full-blown assault on Dean's patience and mental stability. He sticks to the script, for now. "Okay, so walk me one more time through your genius plan."

They're only prolonging the unavoidable, but Dean will gladly welcome putting off the hug-and-cry for as long as humanly possible. Scuffing a hand through his damp hair, he crosses to the chipped laminate counter across from his brother and digs a beer out of the green cooler, twists off the cap and flips at Sam for good measure. "This demon, this…Oneiroi, it's done with me, Sam." Dean gestures with his drink. "You're next."

"And you think this because I maybe saw a cat outside."

It takes more control than Dean will _ever_ admit to not to rub at his suddenly dry, itchy eyes from just the mention of the mangy animal. "I _know_ this," he protests, "because I'm the big brother, and the better hunter, and I know things." Like that makes up for the sneezing fits and the fact he was recently _dead_ and maybe not in the clearest of minds.

"Right." Sam sighs, rubs his hands over his face. "So, I go to sleep, laying the trap, and you're gonna ride shotgun with the dream root."

"Mm hmm."

"And kill it."

"Yahtzee."

"Dean…this thing is under the impression that it killed _you._ What do you think it's gonna do when it sees you in my head?"

Dean drags his teeth over his lower lip. That's Sammy for ya, always with the questions and the poking of holes. "Well, if it thinks I'm just part of your dream, maybe I can trick it. Catch it off guard. And besides, Bobby said it's probably not evil."

Sam shakes his head. "I don't like the 'maybe' or the 'probably' in that plan, Dean."

Dean frowns. "Look, I went along with your stupid idea, Sam. Let you come along to Carthage when I should've locked your overgrown ass in Bobby's panic room and done things my way."

It's a low blow, but he's never been afraid of pulling them, and he's not wrong, and he's still trying to find his footing once more, on the more complicated side of that fine line between _alive_ and _incredibly not._

Sam sighs, the loud, harsh one that lets Dean know he's just definitely earned that serious conversation they're gonna have later, the one he doesn't want any part of. He taps the screen of his computer. "This is what we need. We'll be one step ahead if I can manage to figure out I'm just dreaming, but if you're taking the dream root, you're gonna be the one driving this bus, Dean. You should be able to, uh, conjure it up."

"You do know how nuts that sounds, right?" Dean leans in, squinting at the screen. "So that's what kills this thing?"

Sam nods, double-taps a key and enlarges the picture then, because he can't seem to stop himself, launches into an unnecessary lecture. "Sea poison tree. Even though the plant originated along the coast of the Indian Ocean, the fruit made its way inland. All parts of the tree are poisonous but, I don't know, I guess it eventually killed one of these things. So, you just need to get the juice of the fruit on a blade, or a bullet."

Dean's no longer sure his headache has anything to do with being so recently resurrected, but he stares at the photo of the green, oddly-shaped fruit, burning it into his memory. "That's somehow both extremely vague and incredibly specific," he notes.

Sam huffs a small, tired laugh. "Yeah, but, according to Bobby's sources, effective."

"All right." That's always been good enough for Dean. He straightens and steps back, draining his beer and setting the bottle aside roughly on the counter. "I'm gonna tear this son of a bitch apart."

Sam squints as he rises from his seat at the table. "You seem to be taking this a little personally."

"Well, like you said," Dean says, throwing up a hand as he turns back to his brother, "it killed me, Sam. So." He doesn't mean to sound so nonchalant about the entire ordeal, because it clearly pains Sam to hear it said so bluntly, but it's not like this was the first time he's bit it. Or the last.

"Yeah." Sam gestures to a plain white mug on the countertop behind Dean. "Mixed you up the tea, even put my hair in already."

"You're a strange guy, Sammy."

"Shut up. Mighta gotten cold while you were in the shower, though." He almost sounds apologetic, like cold dream root tea might be the worst thing to happen to Dean today.

He picks up the mug and stares down into the murky brew. "I don't think temperature is a key factor in the taste of this crap, Sam." Dean shudders just thinking about downing the disgusting tea, spares a glance up at his brother. "All right, well…you want me to knock you out, or anything?"

Sam snorts, and it seems mostly genuine. "No, that's okay," he says, drowsiness already softening the edges of his words. He makes his way fully across the motel room, settles onto the bed not spotted with Dean's drying blood and stretches out. "Haven't gotten much sleep lately."

"Yeah, I know." Dean nods, keeping a deliberate distance across the room and scratching a fingernail against the side of his mug.

Sam's head sinks into the center of the pillow. "Wasn't tryin' to say anything."

"Neither was I." Not now, anyway.

"Okay." Sam nods, lets his eyes drift closed around a yawn that betrays just how rundown he's allowed himself to get chasing after his brother's wellbeing. "Well…see you on the other side."

***********************************************************************

His face feels fat and hot and tight, thrumming incessantly with pressure from a half-dozen points of pain. His vision on the left side is compromised, narrowed to a slit and blurry, and he rocks back unsteadily and moves to swipe at the offending area, dropping a canister he had in hand to thud with a metallic clang against a hardwood floor. His fingertips brush puffy, split skin around his eye and shift the stringy hair lying long across his forehead, and –

_Son of a bitch. Not this again._

There's a fair amount of gauzy disorientation to tear through, but it doesn't take long for Sam to recognize where he is, and more importantly, remember what the job is. Remember that this moment isn't real, but the threat very much is.

He had no way of predicting what vague vulnerability or regret the Oneiroi would uncover in his subconscious and cling to when he too easily fell asleep, but he wouldn't have ever knowingly allowed this night to repeat on his brother, even in a dream. This can get out of hand, quickly. Dean's got a blind spot a mile wide where Dad is concerned, nightmare or no, and he's already operating from unsteady ground.

Salt crystals spill thickly from the overturned can and Sam whirls on his heels, dropping a sheet of black across his field of vision as he spins, frantic to locate his brother in the dim cabin. He presses the heel of his hand against his forehead and takes a few deep breaths, steadying himself, and cautiously cracks his eyes open. "Dean?"

Dean comes into the room at Sam's call, looking pale and drawn and dragging ass; appearing younger by a few years but not entirely unlike how he'd looked in the motel room before Sam drifted off. He raises his eyebrows at his younger brother, and, driven by concern, Sam surges forward.

"Dean, hey. You good?"

Dean frowns and raises a hand, fingers tensely splayed as his eyes dart back to the room he's just exited. "Chill, Sam, I'm fine," he protests in a low voice. "And Dad'll be okay. Just needs some rest." He brings the hand up to rub the back of his neck. "How about you?"

Eyes wide, Sam reaches out, gets a handful of his brother's shirt and gives him a shake. "Dean," he says firmly. "Quit screwing around."

Dean's frown deepens are he reels back and swats at Sam's hand on his sleeve. "How hard did that son of a bitch hit you? What's goin' on with you, Sammy?"

Sam recoils. Either Dean didn't make it into the dream, or something's gone horribly wrong. He wonders on the expiration date of something like African dream root, and whether or not they should have taken that into consideration, but has to abandon his musings in favor of full-blown worry as his brother begins to sway where he stands, blinking heavily. "Dean?"

Dean's hand comes up again, this time searching aimlessly for some semblance of balance. He rocks back a step, hard, and his eyes blow wide open and focus immediately on his little brother as _Dean_ falls into the dreamscape. "Sammy?" His gaze drifts away, begins to dart all around the cabin as he gets his bearings in the dream and in the cabin, and Sam has to watch it happen, witness it sinking in. "Sam…"

"You've got this, Dean," Sam says with a tight nod.

His brother returns the nod, slow and careful and wanting it to be so, but he doesn't got this. He really doesn't, and it's painfully obvious to Sam. Dean's been through too much, has had his foundation rocked by loss and failure and he's never quite been able to see in himself what Sam does. To have to come back to this night, to this _moment_ …it'll kill him. In fact, it might actually _kill him,_ and he'd be collateral damage, because this dream is meant to test Sam.

Sam draws himself to his full height and swallows roughly, assessing their full situation here; the mission to kill the Oneiroi, the very real possible of transferable physical injury to them both, and their possessed father lying in wait in the next room. He lowers his voice and asks, "Dean, do you have the Colt on you?"

Dean blinks at him, and somehow discovers a paler shade to turn. "What?" He's thrown, obviously, by the setting and the implications, but finds the gun at his back, drags it free.

The lights flicker, and the wind picks up outside, howling audibly and ominously beyond the walls of the cabin as a violent gust sends the loose shutters banging against the wood.

 _Crap,_ is about all Sam has time to think.

"Boys."

Sam whirls at the voice, vision flashing once more like a popping strobe light, and finds his father bracing himself on the threshold, framed by the soft glow of lamplight from the other room.

No, not his father. The demon.

_Azazel._

His heart seems huge and frantic in his chest at the sight of him, but every muscle in Sam's body tenses, until he's worried he might crack right down the middle, a fault line drawn from pure rage. _You son of a bitch._

"It found us," it says, in John Winchester's voice. "It's here."

"Yeah, we got that," Dean says, venom dripping from the words, but his voice wavers. He knows what they're dealing with, but it's been _years,_ long, lonely ones, and the gun lays limp against his thigh.

"Mind your tone, boy," it spits, drawing a wince from Dean though they both know it isn't him. The demon steps closer, a pretense of urgency deepening the familiar grooves of his father's face. "Sam, lines of salt – "

"Yeah," Sam interrupts. "You can cut the crap."

"Excuse me?" Then it whirls on Dean, sets those wide, imploring eyes on the exposed target of his very heart and soul. "Your brother's lost his mind," the demon says, "and we don't have time for this. You wanna kill this demon, you've gotta trust me."

The resulting pause stretches into eternity, but Dean slowly raises the gun, and it backs the demon up a step.

This dream isn't Dean's, and he might be vulnerable here but he's never had regrets about his choices in this moment. Even now, staring down the narrow barrel of the Colt at his father and _knowing_ it's not his father, his face wavers, and his aim falters.

"It's not Dad, Dean," Sam says softly, raising a hand. "You know it's not Dad, and you can take control of this. You can change it."

He doesn't even know if his brother is hearing him. Dean's taken too many hits, swallowed too much loss and washed too much blood from his hands. Even knowing the truth, he won't pull the trigger. He can't.

Azazel knows it, too, dream or not.

Sam's aware of what's going on but he's not in control of it, and he's forced to watch helplessly as Dean is tossed backwards with the wink of a milky yellow eye as the demon gives up the charade.

The sturdy wood wall of the cabin is no match for the demon's strength and fury. The paneling splinters and buckles under Dean's crashing weight, and he slumps limply to the floorboards.

Sam lunges for the fallen gun, scoops it up and whirls. He doesn't waste time trading words, or even reminding himself this isn't real and isn't really his father. Not until after he pulls the trigger, drops the son of a bitch in a bleeding heap across the room.

Only then is there time for _not Dad, not real,_ and _didn't kill him._ For _already dead,_ and _not gonna play me like that._

Sam tosses the Colt aside on the nearest flat surface and thuds to his knees at his brother's side. They've already strayed so far from the agreed-upon playbook, and he doesn't care about Dad or weapons or the Oneiroi. He cares about _Dean,_ and Dean's coming around, but a bit too slow for Sam's liking. "Dean, hey. Dean, come on, man. Up and at 'em."

He gets the wall at Dean's back, watches as his brother lifts a dazed hand to probe the bloody side of his head, shoots a grimace up at the dark spot on the wood that matches the mark.

"Well," Dean says thickly, wincing at the sight of his bloodied fingertips. "That's gonna smart."

 _Shit._ Sam falls back into his heels. He'd somehow forgotten for a moment that it's not just _dying_ they have to be wary of here, but of _any_ injury. It'll all come back with them. He clenches his jaw, squeezes Dean's shoulder. "We'll deal with that later. You in one piece?"

"Yeah, think so." Dean raises his eyes. "Why are we here, Sam?"

"Okay." Sam shifts his weight, takes on more of Dean's as he tries to maneuver his brother into a sitting position. "You have a concussion."

Dean shoves him away, uses the wall rather than Sam to slowly work his way back to standing. "No, Sam. Why are we _here?_ This thing, it, uh…you regret not shooting Dad, don't you? Not killing him?"

Sam swallows. "It wasn't Dad."

"You didn't answer the question."

He didn't, and he won't, and he won't actually have the chance to, because suddenly, the son of a bitch groans from his prone spot across the main room of the cabin. They both watch with varying levels of horror and remorse as their father drags himself into a seated position, rolling his neck as though working out a kink put there by the bullet hole between his eyes.

 _It's not Dad,_ Sam reminds himself, but can't this time find the words to remind Dean.

Dad pulls himself to his feet, and his eyes flash briefly yellow before glowing a bright, deep violet that seems to carve a slice from everything hidden inside Sam. Except this isn't Dad, or even Azazel. It's the Oneiroi, and it's looking right at Dean.

"Dean…Winchester." Sam doesn't care for the way his brother's name sounds on the demon's tongue as it tries it out. Gravelly, unearthly, but _knowing._ Knowing things Sam doesn't. This son of a bitch has seen Dean in vulnerable positions he wouldn't dare allow his little brother to witness, and for that reason alone he both envies the demon and wants it very _dead._

Dean doesn't move, doesn't flinch, but maintains steady contact with those piercing, glowing purple eyes staring back at him.

"I am…surprised, to see you here."

Dean _tsks_ and shakes his head. "Guess I'm not so easy to take down."

Sam's eyes dart between his brother and his – _the demon_ – and he suddenly wishes he hadn't so hastily set the Colt aside.

It steps forward, and both brothers shrink back a step. "You've misinterpreted my intentions with you, Dean. You are…an interesting human. Much more so than the others I've studied."

"Not bad for the last face you'll ever see, huh?" But it's still wearing Dad, and Dean's voice falters.

"Your bravado is nothing more than a cheap trick. And growing tiresome." It turns slightly, cocking its head at Sam. "You, on the other hand, remain something of a mystery to me. You stand aside and allow your brother to take control, even in your own head?"

Sam was young here, this night, and he was in the game but with a fair amount of reluctance. He let Dean take the wheel, time and again. Stood on the edge of the room and followed his brother's lead, and nearly got his entire family killed in the process. Maybe that's what the return to this night was about, and still, he stepped aside. But he's not going to spare it another thought, because he really doesn't like supernatural creatures using his family to do their dirty work.

Neither, quite obviously, does Dean. "I'm gonna kill you," he promises, tone lethal and not inviting questions.

Its mouth widens into a grin that isn't quite Dad and isn't quite Azazel. It seems apathetic, and befits a creature concerned only for its own continued existence. "You will have to find me first."

Then the cabin is gone, humid, stuffy darkness of a stormy night replaced in a blink with a bright, airy morning, a city street crowded with narrow buildings like any of those in the small towns they've been making waves in their entire lives.

"Oh, son of a bitch," Dean complains, rubbing at his bloody forehead.

Sam remains silent as he takes it all in, recognizing this particular street immediately, but it's clear that Dean doesn't.

Why would he?

For Dean, this day is a hazy, confusing one that he's never quite been able to remember properly. For Sam, it was…well, he'd say "hell" if he didn't know better than to talk about things he can't fully understand.

Dean winces as he spins in place, wary and lost and taking stock of their surroundings, searching out a recognizable landmark to place where the Oneiroi has dropped them. He comes up empty, as expected. "I don't get it. Sam, what is this?"

Sam's shoulders fall as he says in a tight voice, "it's Tuesday."

*********************************************************************

_To be continued..._


	9. Chapter Eight

"Tuesday?" Dean squints up at his brother through the glaring light of the morning sun. The motion jags the trail of blood running the length of his face, forcing a helter-skelter line of crimson along his jawline and causing his horribly pale and confused expression to resemble a cheaply made Halloween mask. "Sam, there have been a lot of Tuesdays." As though the blood there is an irritation rather than a sign of injury, he swipes absently at his cheek and grimaces down at his fingertips, drags his hand along the thigh of his jeans to transfer the dark stain to the denim. "One per week, matter 'a fact, and most of them have been crap. So you're gonna need to be a little more specific here."

Sam swallows nervously, gut churning and mind reeling as he surveys the quiet small-town street and struggles to answer the very same question.

_WHICH Tuesday?_

There's no way to be sure, and they bleed together in his mind's eye as he attempts in vain to remember all of them at once; a hundred Tuesdays that are nearly identical but for one or two details, seemingly insignificant until it's suddenly too late to do anything to save his brother from a cruelly-timed demise. If he can pinpoint the _exact_ day this damned demon/demigod/what-the-hell has landed them in, maybe he can keep Dean alive despite the odds stacked so heavily against them. Death might not be as permanent as they once feared it was, but that doesn't mean Sam is looking to go through this very literal nightmare again.

_God, not again._

"Sam!"

He jerks as his brother's fingers snap sharply in front of his face.

"Dude." Dean is wide-eyed and exuding frustration as he drops his hand to his side, clearly having called for Sam's attention more than once. "You gonna share with the class anytime soon, or should I just start guessin'?"

Sam licks his lips and takes a step back, pushing a tense hand through his hair. His eyes haven't stopped moving, searching for any of those small details that could tip him off as what to expect. How to anticipate any of those gruesome ways he's already had to watch his brother die. "You know that job we did in Florida a couple of years ago, with the Trickster? When, uh, he still _was_ the Trickster?"

His brother shifts his weight uneasily, no more comfortable with attempting to remember the blur of that case than Sam is with having to relive it in his dreams. Dean has always been more of a control freak than he'd ever admit to, and that job in Broward took the rug out from under him in ways he can't even recall. He's quiet for a long moment before finally offering, "You mean the one where you were acting completely batshit, then got a hard-on because it was Wednesday?"

It really shouldn't come as any sort of surprise that anything Dean _would_ be able to remember revolves around his little brother, and is maybe the _only_ thing to possibly be made light of, but Sam, growing more and more anxious as the seconds pass, still rolls his eyes. "I didn't – "

"Oh, and then you threw out my Asia tape and spent the next month giving me the weepy puppy eyes."

"Dude, I have never – " Sam holds up his hands, takes a breath in an attempt to steady his racing heart. On more than one of those fateful Tuesdays, his own inability to remain calm is what eventually spelled out doom for his brother. He remembers an axe in his hands, and Dean trying to wrest it from him. "Look, it doesn't matter. Dean, that's _this_ Tuesday."

"Oh." Dean's brows jump as he thinks it through, his eyes widening as it eventually sinks in fully. The expression would be almost comical, if it weren't so horribly, unbelievably _not. "Oh."_ He holds up a hand of his own, bouncing it anxiously in the air. "Wait a minute. Didn't you say that I died then? Like – "

"More times that I could or would ever want to count?" Sam nods grimly, feeling tight and tense despite knowing better, so much so that he thinks he might snap a bone from doing nothing more strenuous than simply standing in the street. "Yeah."

"Okay." Dean's head bobs as he digests that information, eyes bright and rapidly roving the tight row of buildings lining either side of the street as he attempts to locate a tangible, visible danger. Because he's perpetually staring down the barrel, but he's okay with that; nothing knocks Dean further off his game than the threats he can't see coming right at him. "Okay. So what the hell do we do now?"

Sam works his jaw. "We don't let you die before we end this son of a bitch, that's what."

Dean seems more than a little spooked as his gaze continues to bounce around the outlying area before settling back on his brother's face. He throws his arms wide. "What the fuck, Sam?"

"I don't know, man."

"No, seriously, what the – "

"I _get_ it, Dean," Sam snaps.

Dean drags a hand down his face, smearing blood along his cheek, and rubs at his chin a moment as he eyes Sam carefully. "How many Tuesdays did you have again?"

"Enough." A wash of fury and a desire to inflict a considerable amount of pain washes over Sam, settling uncomfortably in his gut. He plants his hands on his hips and rotates suddenly on his heel, as though he could physically pull away from the feeling, but only succeeds in causing his brother to flinch violently at his side.

"Jesus, Sam!" Dean exclaims. "Warn a guy!" He bends at the waist to catch his breath, all of the color seemingly drained from his face.

He's scared, and pissed, and Sam can relate to both. Intimately. He hasn't been allowed many opportunities to feel responsible for his big brother, but this definitely qualifies. If Dean dies here in this dream – if Sam _allows_ him to die again, here…well, no amount of angelic intervention will be able to wipe that failure from his mind. Ever. "All right," he says, tightly. "No screwing around. We have to kill this demon. Or demigod, or whatever the hell it is."

Dean nods slowly, swallows. "And there are literally a hundred ways this can go sideways."

Sam whirls on his brother, clenches a fist that's not meant for him. "I swear to God, Dean, if you're trying to be funny right now – "

"I'm not." Dean shakes his head. His always-watchful gaze continues a track of their surroundings, but he hasn't yet moved from his initial spot. He frowns, and his hand comes up close to the sluggishly bleeding wound at his temple before dropping back to his side. "Why here, Sam? Why this?"

Sam lifts his shoulders, takes care not to meet his brother's eyes. "Hell if I know, man."

Dean huffs out a humorless laugh, and it's immensely frustrating that he knows Sam well enough not to buy it. "Well, obviously this damn thing thinks there's something you could have done differently. I mean, that's what it does, right?" He finally takes a few cautious steps down the otherwise empty street, throwing a glance back over his shoulder. "Or you think so."

_"What?"_

Dean taps his own temple, wincing as he makes accidental contact with the open wound there. He makes another irritated face, once again scrubs bloody fingertips along his jeans. "This is _your_ dream, Sam. Your head."

Sam's thought about it, of course; lived it a hundred times but hasn't ever truly stopped speculating whether or not he could have made this hellacious Tuesday end differently. Or, hell, just END. This isn't anywhere _near_ the first time he's had this dream. Nowhere near the first time he's fallen asleep to find himself walking this quiet city street as the sun's coming up, because Dean hadn't been sleeping well with Hell's egg timer counting down and did everything he could to play it off with wide grins, blaring music synced to the alarm and uncharacteristically early breakfasts.

Nowhere _near_ the first time Sam's thought, _to HELL with the Trickster – with Gabriel – this one's on ME._

But it's an exercise in needless self-torture that feels as foreign as it does wrong, because relentless second-guessing and assuming the responsibility of the fate of every godforsaken soul his very existence touches is how _Dean_ thinks. But at the time, Sam was trying so damn hard to think like his brother, believing – for better or worse – that was who he was going to need to be, to survive in this world without Dean Winchester dragging his ass out of each and every fire he tripped into.

No matter how right the man might be – because _damn it all_ if he isn't somehow always right about these things – some of that Dean Winchester way of thinking stuck, so Sam narrows his eyes at his brother, and refuses acknowledge that bit of vulnerability that's been made so fairly obvious by the simple fact that they're here. "I lived this day a _hundred_ times, Dean. There is NOTHING more that I could have done differently."

Dean raises his hands in surrender and walks gingerly back to his brother, like his boots are landing atop a sheet of thin, unstable ice instead of solid pavement. "Okay, okay. Let's just…one step at a time, Sam." He jerks his chin. "Look around. What do you recognize?"

"I recognize…" _God, EVERYTHING._ It can only serve to make this incredibly jacked-up situation worse by pointing out all of the little things that he's fought so desperately to forget. He's stood by and watched his brother DIE, for real, and more than once now. He could really do without being forced to remember all of the deaths that didn't stick or count. Sam sighs, sending his gaze upward before surveying the street. He throws an arm out to the side. "The buildings. The street lamps. That car parked over there." He works his jaw, jerks his chin at an apartment building across the street. "Someone over there's getting a big-ass desk delivered tonight."

Dean's eyebrows come together as he bobs his head and keeps remarkably calm, given the circumstances. Or puts on one hell of a show, just trying to take the reins the way he'd planned it. "Okay. So what's different?"

"No, Dean," Sam barks. "Playing 'I Spy' in my dream isn't going to get us anywhere. We need to kill this thing, _now._ We need that fruit."

His brother blinks. "The what?"

_"Dean."_

"Oh. Right." Dean offers one of those mildly sheepish grins that have grown few and far between these dark days, before he squeezes his eyes shut and tilts his head, biting his lower lip as his face screws up in concentration.

It all seems incredibly dramatic, even taking into account the nightmare-inflicted head wound his big brother is wincing around. Exasperated and anxious and wanting this entire thing to be OVER, Sam finds himself once more rolling his eyes. "Dean, seriously – "

Dean's eyes spring open. "Do you think this is any easier with you yellin' at me?"

"Fine." Sam raises his hands and takes a step back, giving the man some room.

With a swift nod of approval and maybe an eye roll of his own, Dean's features once more tighten in obvious, near painful-looking concentration.

Sam's nearing the ceiling of his frustration, is just about thinking that he doesn't remember it being quite this hard to take control with an assist from the dream root – when a pale green, lantern-shaped sea poison fruit appears between their feet.

Dean lets out the breath he was apparently – and perhaps unnecessarily – holding and rubs at his forehead. "Son of a bitch." He frowns down at the fist-sized fruit and cocks his head, seeming a bit self-conscious as he asks, "that it?"

Sam nods. "Yeah."

"Awesome." Dean squints into the rising sun, waves a hand. "Then make your fruit salad, or whatever."

"Knives, Dean."

Dean sighs, and looks very much – and very understandably – like he's riding the tidal waves of a killer headache. "Right."

This time seems easier, headache or no, and Dean doesn't half-ass where weaponry is concerned, so it's a pretty wicked-looking pair of blue-steel blades that clatter to the pavement. Sam drops to a knee and lifts one of the knives by its intricately engraved hilt to study the pristine blade. "Little fancy for all we need."

"Yeah, well, beggars can't be choosers, Sam. Let's get on with it. I feel like a sitting duck out here."

Sam crouches, reaching for the sea poison fruit when Dean stops him with an apprehensive hand on his shoulder.

"Hey, hey, wait a minute. I thought we needed this thing because it's poisonous. You sure you should be touching it?"

"I'm not gonna take a _bite_ out of it or anything." Sam shakes his brother's hand away and quickly cuts through the firm outer layer, dragging each blade through the spongy meat of the fruit. He drops the mutilated fruit back to the pavement and hands off one of the poisoned knives to his brother, himself hesitating as Dean's fingers wrap around the hilt.

"What?"

"Just…be careful."

"Dude."

Sam grips tightly to the knife, pins his brother in place with a fierce, maybe frightened glare. "No, Dean, don't 'dude' me. You have no idea what I…you're not gonna die here, okay? Not here. Not today."

Something in Dean's eyes changes as he yanks the knife fully into his own possession, a deep, near-unrecognizable pit of darkness leaching through to stab Sam in every place it hurts the worst. He chuffs out the sort of humorless almost-laugh that historically precedes a strike of some kind. "Not like it matters," he mutters, turning away.

Sam rises in an instant, grabbing his brother's arm tight enough to bruise and whipping Dean back around to face him. "Don't you dare say that," he seethes.

Dean stares back, steely and impassive. "I meant because of the angels," he finally returns, coolly, and wrenches his arm away to tuck the knife into an inside pocket of his jacket.

Sam mirrors the motion, and almost – _almost_ – believes his brother. He can't bank on _almost_ – not HERE – but before he has a chance to retort, to launch an argument or a lecture, Dean sniffs and shows Sam his back.

"Okay," he says, loud enough to let Sam know the matter is closed. "We're lookin' for something with wings?"

As he nods, Sam is haunted by those intense, violet eyes of the Oneiroi burning into him from his father's face, and can't help thinking that he's just about had it up to _here_ with wings. "That's what the lore said."

"Geek," Dean murmurs under his breath, just loudly enough for Sam to hear, but doesn't wait for a response. He slowly, stiffly makes his way down the empty street, pulling the hem of his jacket sleeve over the heel of his hand and rubbing at the blood drying along the side of his face.

Whether or not his brother has given him the opportunity for a comeback, Sam knows exactly what the jackass is doing, that he's grasping at straws and trying desperately to ruffle whatever feathers he can, to distract from the more pressing, serious issues lingering in the heavy air between them. But he's not going to let Dean win – not in the way he wants, not by refusing to acknowledge certain things that have happened or been said.

It's just that, first, they need to kill this damned dream demon and wake the hell up. There will surely be more than enough wounds – of all kinds – to tend to then.

"Right," Dean comments to himself, as though he knows what Sam's thinking. He cautiously pats at the inside pocket of his jacket, where the poisoned knife is concealed. "Sam, all I did was say I was gonna kill it and the thing took off." Somewhat hesitantly, he drags the blade free, enough to expose the hilt. "What's the sonuvabitch gonna do when it sees us with these?"

_Good question._ And Sam's pretty sure he doesn't want to find out. They're here now because the Oneiroi felt cornered and threatened in the cabin and apparently latched onto some not-entirely-forgotten whiff of vulnerability this series of repeated events left etched in Sam's subconscious. He's always tried not to have regrets, but there are certainly a few oldies this piece of shit could dust off and throw into the mix if it's really looking to knock him off his game. And some that aren't quite as old as he or Dean would like to think. Ruby. Lilith. The demon blood. There's no way any of that ends well, for he or his brother.

He plants his hands on his hips and squints down the length of the street. What they need is an element of surprise – beyond the dream root and the poisoned blades – because Dean's right; the Oneiroi has home field advantage here. They're sitting ducks, exposed, regardless of the fact they're in Sam's head and memory. His eyes land on the façade of the diner ahead on the corner. "Son of a bitch," he breathes.

Dean spooks once more, hand moving instinctively in the direction of his knife. "What?"

"The _Trickster_ ," Sam says, throwing his hand toward the restaurant before moving swiftly in the same direction. "Or – whoever, Gabriel. We need to find him, convince him to help us."

His brother quirks an eyebrow as he catches up to Sam's longer strides, giving him that look like he's lost his damn mind. "This is a dream, Sam."

"How's your head feel, Dean?" he retorts, because dream or not, the tension and threat feel damn well real enough.

"Yeah, okay." Dean pulls up short of the entrance of the diner and stares at the wide, large windows of the place where he doesn't remember that time he once-but-never choked to death. The street corner where he didn't-but-totally-did get smoked by a car.

_Did it look cool, like in the movies?_

No. It didn't look fucking cool. Not at all.

"You know," Dean finally says, "I'd really rather not put all our eggs in that asshat's basket."

"Well, I'd really rather not watch you die here. Again." Sam punctuates the statement with a very pointed look, one he borrowed from Dean, who learned it from Dad. It means quite simply, _don't test me._

Dean works his jaw and stares right back, just as hard-wired to fight and resist as he's always accused Sam of being. He sighs, dropping his shoulders such a small fraction, only Sam would catch it. "Whatever, man. But if he screws with us, it's on you."

Sam nods tightly, a single dip of his chin. "Noted."

If he wasn't on edge already, that's a situation immediately remedied by the chime of the tiny bell fixed over the frame as Dean shoves the door open. His brother goes to work scanning the faces of the diner patrons for any sign of the archangel, but doesn't seem to easily recognize where he sits in disguise enjoying pancakes at the counter.

Sam raises a hand to point him out, but the _chang_ of a closing cash drawer brings his head whipping in the direction of the cashier.

"Drive safely now, Mr. Pickett."

And he can't help himself; he snakes the old man's keys as he prods his brother in the direction of the man they're looking for. Dean's memories might be fuzzy – at best – but his instincts are sharp, and he IDs their target quickly enough to give Sam whiplash.

He leans in as they approach, speaks softly over his brother's shoulder. "All right, Dean. I know you're not crazy about this idea, but we should probably – "

"Hey," Dean interjects loudly, like he wasn't even entertaining the notion of listening to Sam. "Dickbag."

"Subtle," Sam comments, mostly to himself.

But subtlety really isn't Dean's thing, and when the angel ignores them, he grabs the back of the man's suit jacket, hauls him off of his stool, spins him around and slams him back against the counter.

Sam grips his brother's shoulder but it's becoming pretty clear that Dean's had his fill of being fucked with. He shrugs Sam off, curls his lip down at the stammering man. "We know who you are."

"Mister, my name is Ed Coleman. My wife's name is – "

Dean cuts him off with another rough slam against the counter, rattling silverware and tipping over the bottle of maple syrup.

It might be Doris – who was always quick with their coffee and bad with a bow but now doesn't recognize them – shrieking for someone to call the police, and then everything goes quiet in the diner, and everyone apart from the three of them freezes in place. Like someone flipped a switch.

Sam squints down at the angel. "Did you do that?"

"No," Dean says through clenched teeth, not breaking eye contact with the man he's got folded over the counter. "I did."

Where Sam gapes at his brother, the angel in question seems merely amused, as he morphs from the average, forgettable countenance of a man in ad sales to the boyish grin of a face they've come to know well. "Where'd you learn that trick?"

Dean twists his fists the man's jacket. "It's not a trick, nimrod. None of this is."

"Actually, bucko, it is." His grin widens. "I made you two the second you hit town."

"Yeah, all right. Can it, Chuckles. We know you're not the Trickster. We know you're an archangel."

"Wha - sounds like somebody spiked the punchbowl, fellas."

"How about I spike your punchbowl," Dean returns, and his tone does well to carry the threat his senseless words leave hanging in the air like an unfinished joke.

"This is a dream," Sam explains, drawing the angel's attention. He lays a calming hand on Dean's arm, gently drags his brother away from the archangel. "This isn't…we're hunting. It's an Oneiroi. A child of – "

"Morpheus. Thought I felt something else floating around in here." The angel shrugs his shoulders as he straightens, fidgets like he's got an itch he can't reach to scratch. "Kinda tickles, now that you mention it." When he sees neither Winchester is as entertained by any of this as he is, he sighs. "You two should really consider a vacation. Maybe get a massage, some drinks with those little umbrel –"

"You're manning the controls here as much as anyone," Sam interrupts, keen on cutting to the chase. "We just need you to find the Oneiroi, and lock it down long enough for us to kill it. Before it kills us."

Gabriel smirks. "If this – " He gestures widely, encompassing the diner. " – is just a dream…what makes you think I can I do anything? Provided, of course, that I felt inclined to do so."

"The Oneiroi recreated this place from my memory so, theoretically, everything should be just as I remember it. Including your ability to alter reality." At least, that's the hope Sam is currently banking on.

The angel takes a moment, considering. "What's in it for me?"

Dean lurches forward to grab another handful of the archangel's lapels and this time, Sam doesn't make a move to stop him. He jerks his head toward the diner's picture windows. "Out there? We haven't killed you yet. You help us, and you get to keep that winning streak alive. Literally."

"All right, all _right_ ," Gabriel concedes as his back connects roughly with the edge of counter, raising his hands in mock surrender. "What'd you do, Sam? Feed him after midnight? Sheesh." He rolls his eyes, then clamps a hand down hard on Dean's right arm and wrenches it away from his shirtfront. Despite Dean's noise of pain and protest, he doesn't release his hold as his eyes move between the two. "You two knuckleheads have kinda grown on me, like a rash, and I would _hate_ to lose my favorite source of entertainment to an anachronistic bird. So, sure, I'll put the shackles on it. But, word to the wise? You get a shot? Don't miss." He shoves Dean away to stumble into Sam, and winks. "Bye now."

He's gone, just like that, along with everyone else who'd been frozen in time in the diner. The restaurant's empty save the two of them, dark and cold, and Sam is left with the sneaking suspicion that it's just them and the Oneiroi left in the dreamscape, with the archangel up their sleeve lurking in the wings.

He turns to where his brother is inspecting the darkening bruise encircling his right forearm. "Y'all right?"

"No. I'm pissed." Dean shakes out his arm, sighs. "I'm fine."

Sam nods automatically, then shifts his weight, squints. "Hey, how'd you do that whole, you know, freeze-frame thing?"

Dean hitches a shoulder, but otherwise ignores the question.

It should be more than enough cause for concern that Dean won't even look in Sam's general direction as they make their way back out onto the empty street. Because _pissed_ is where Dean goes when he can't get a firm enough grasp on anything else, or anything in the realm of strength or control, at least. Pissed Dean is known to be two things: reckless, and downright scary. Pissed Dean thinks it's a great plan to walk right up to Lucifer and shoot him point-blank in the face.

Pissed Dean never stops when Sam yells for him to wait.

Right on cue, Dean frowns, narrowing his eyes up at one of the windows of a building on the other side of the street. He whacks Sam in the arm with the back of his hand, jerks his chin. "There," he says, softly, dragging his poisoned knife from his jacket in a way that can't mean anything but business.

Sam follows Dean's gaze to an aging, likely abandoned three-story apartment or office building. He sees only a crumbling brick façade with faded trim and boarded-up windows; certainly nothing that screams _danger_ enough to warrant the blade his brother has gripped in his hand. "What?"

"Looks like…wings. Top floor."

And that's all the warning Sam is given before Dean takes off, like he's completely forgotten that he'd destined to die here. Like he's completely forgotten that's _exactly why they're here._

"Dean, wait!"

But he never does. He never has, and he never, ever will.

Dean's long, loping steps have already carried him halfway up the narrow, creaky stairwell to the second floor as his brother's whipping open the door the overzealous jackass has just kicked in. Sam steps fully into the building's dim, moldy-smelling lobby just in time to get an earful of the ominous, splintering _snaps_ under Dean's foot.

"Dean!" he shouts, but his brother is already heeding the warning of the wood cracking under his boot, and he hops back to the main floor with some degree of grace.

Sam closes the distance between them, grips a chalk-white Dean but the jacket sleeve. "Hey, you good?"

Dean bobs his head, a tired, pained and not entirely convinced nod. He wrenches free of Sam's grasp, tilts his head to inspect the collapsing stairwell. "Well, that's out. How the hell we gonna get up there now?"

"The dream root, Dean."

"The what?"

Sam clenches his jaw, preaches patience to himself. "You freaking _froze time_ back there in the diner, man. Getting up a couple flights of stairs'll be a piece of cake."

"Pie," Dean grumbles.

Sam smirks, blinks, and then he's suddenly folded over the stairwell railing, staring _down_ at the building's lobby. "Okay," he comments slowly, rotating his head to glance at his brother. "That was weird."

Dean hums an agreement, brings up a hand to rub at his forehead. "That was…trippy." Because for years of giving Sam crap about desiring some semblance of normalcy in his life, Dean always spooks when he gets too a personal taste of the exact sorts of things Sam was running from.

It takes him all of a half-second to turn the corner from _trippy_ to _deadly_ , as he raises the poisoned blade and jerks his chin in the direction of the ajar door at the end of the short, narrow hallway. Sam follows suit, bringing up his own weapon and moving toward the door.

Dean stops him before he gets there, holds Sam back with a sideways glance and firm hand on his chest, and takes it upon himself to nudge the door open fully, where, framed by a cracked, dirt-streaked picture window, the Oneiroi waits.

In the cabin, wearing the face of their father, it had seemed cruelly deliberate with its words and movements, but those could be very well have been behaviors drawn from the host. It's not as though John Winchester was known for his warm and fuzzy disposition. But here, it merely turns to look at them as they enter, and it – _she?_ – looks human, mostly, but for the dark wings folded against its sides. And the eyes, bright purple and _piercing_ , seeing right into your core.

"Nice costume," Dean says coolly, but Sam can feel him tense up at his side. "Little overkill, maybe."

The wings expand to an impressive span, stretching to graze the walls of the room, but Sam can't get a read on whether the motion is meant to be intimidating or if it's simple grandstanding. Both, he realizes belatedly, because she clearly can't move much more than that.

Dean plays at considering, and the entire time it's obvious he's wincing around a killer headache. "More impressive than a scrawny-ass cat, though. I'll give ya that."

Her eyes darken and narrow. "I wasn't trying to hurt you," she says, simply, "Or any of them." She's not pleading, nor begging, but explaining, like she's merely broken a favored toy rather than killed people, killed _Dean._

"Yeah, well, feeling's not mutual," Dean growls.

She registers the threat of his words and meets his eyes, and Sam feels it, as she searches his subconscious – his _soul_ – for any sort of out, for a vulnerability she can latch onto to escape. But the archangel did his job, and as Dean steps forward, she can't seem to do more than stand there and await death.

Or so she'd like them to think.

Dean doesn't get within _feet_ of the dream demon before its head whips around, all sharp angles and deep, dark eyes, and then with an affronted yell, he's hurtling back through the open door like he's been shot from a canon.

The crack of the stairwell railing buckling beneath Dean's weight is unmistakable, and the splintering sounds of the fragile wooden steps doesn't leave much to the imagination.

Sam doesn't hear his brother land, as his heart thumps noisily and takes an impressive leap, lodges somewhere in his throat where it won't easily be extricated. He's sick with a sudden, intense worry for Dean but he knows what he has to do, takes advantage of the Oneiroi's distraction and rushes her, slams the dagger home in her chest.

Her bright, violet eyes widen in shock, pain and something akin to betrayal. Her hands come up to grip his where he holds firmly to the blade's hilt, but that strike on Dean did well to sap what little energy she had left, whatever power Gabriel hadn't managed to siphon away with his angelic shackles. Her touch is surprisingly cool and delicate; nothing betraying the ferocity of violence that's erupted in the nightmares she's helped to facilitate.

She inhales sharply, a high-pitched and wounded sound, and Sam's knocked nearly off of his feet by a concussive blast with the Oneiroi at its epicenter, slammed back into a wall by an intense release of power he can feel in the roots of his teeth.

Bright pops like flashbulbs explode in his field of vision and then she shimmers away before his eyes, vanishes on a wisp of cool wind, like a dream you can't quite grasp enough to remember.

The poisoned blade clatters to the floor, the sound echoing harshly into the otherwise empty room.

Breathing heavily, Sam's sliding down the wall to the floor when it feels like his chair's been kicked out from under him, and as he's falling he can't stop thinking that he has to check on Dean.

**************************************************************

He wakes with a start and a gasp, jackknifing like he's had a bucket of ice water dumped over him.

Sam shoves up on the mattress and swings his legs over the edge of the bed, immediately, wildly searching the darkened motel room for his brother.

He finds Dean too easily, crumpled on the grimy carpet, pale, bloody, and not moving.

**************************************************************

_To be concluded in Chapter Nine_


	10. Chapter Nine

"Dean!"

There's no answer, no sign of movement of any kind from his big brother. Sam trips in his haste to get to Dean's side, nearly face-plants onto the grimy motel carpet but catches himself on a palm thrust against the wall. He finds himself squinting in the glow of rising daylight peeking in through a break in the thick curtains, disoriented and light-headed for a few breaths as though his thundering heart leapt right out of his chest and all the way to the floor.

When he finally falls to his knees next to Dean – who isn't talking or even moving but is audibly _breathing_ – Sam is first relieved, and second shocked. Because his brother is ALIVE. And that's just not what he was expecting. Not after that dream.

Not after that particular Tuesday.

He doesn't pause to properly triage or identify wounds as he crouches at Dean's side, doesn't do much beyond search out obvious signs of blood as he rolls his brother's head to face him and pats a cool, pale cheek. "Dean, hey. Hey."

Dean jerks suddenly, startling himself awake, but with nothing approaching the vehemence of coming back to life after things went south in his dream of Carthage. His eyes roll under his lids and he gasps – but it's a too-familiar sound of shock and pain, and not the chilling, desperate inhale to refill delated and useless lungs that Sam had heard before.

"Hey," he says again, choking on the word, because he can't quite wrap his head around the fact his brother is _alive_ , and seemingly – _surprisingly_ – without any sort of angelic interference. Everything that had happened on that Tuesday was designed specifically to _kill Dean_ , and yet here he lies, wrinkling his nose and hacking miserably as he surfaces from the effects of the dream root – which Sam sympathetically remembers as having an aftereffect as bad as its taste.

It's not morbidity but curiosity. It's _knowing_ better. Even as he's ecstatic at the sight of Dean coughing and coming around, all Sam can think is _why aren't you dead?_

****************************************************************  
After crashing through the stairs and striking the puke-green linoleum flooring of the main lobby, he spends an indefinite amount of time hovering in a sleepy gray space in which everything feels hazy and cold and thankfully distant. Then Dean's eyes snap open and pain shoots like a searing laser beam from one temple to the other, like the worst hangover EVER, then draped over a concussion and topped with a shot of adrenaline straight to the heart.

Waking from the effects of the dream root tea _sucks out loud._ He should have thought twice about this "genius plan" of his, should have remembered those miserable hours in Pittsburgh he and Sam spent alternately calling the hospital to check on Bobby and booting each other out of that dim, gaudy motel bathroom to take turns curling around the toilet bowl. There are other factors, of course, because their confrontation with the Oneiroi didn't exactly involve _pillow fighting._ The room tilts and spins sickeningly overhead, and it feels like something hot and foul died in his mouth. Dean coughs reflexively, harshly, and is overcome with an intense, immediate need to vomit.

He gathers his strength and heaves to the side, finds himself face-to-boot with his brother's shoes. Hands are already pawing at him, gripping him firmly under the arms as Dean realizes he's rolling around on the coarse, grubby carpeting of their motel room. Sam hauls him upright as far as his knees before they both decide that's more than enough for the moment.

And – _oh yeah_ – he remembers now, vaguely, how he'd slumped into a chair after downing the tea, because Sam had already hesitantly and stiffly laid claim to the least bloody of the two beds, and Dean hadn't thought a cooling pool of his own blood was an appealing factor when searching out a cozy spot for an impromptu nap.

Sam's mumbling as he manhandles his brother up onto the bed he's just vacated. There's plenty of emotion to be heard in his tone, but over the rising roar in his rung skull, Dean can't make out enough to know which of the two of them he's actually mumbling to.

Dean feels the edge of the mattress bump against the backs of his legs, and then Sam suggests he get horizontal with a mostly gentle palm against his sternum. He flops bonelessly onto his back, and his stomach seems slow in following, slams down a few seconds after the rest of his body and causes him to swallow convulsively against a sudden churn of acid.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa."

Dean understands _that_ perfectly fine – the panic and concern flooding Sam's voice as his brother helps him tip to the side in just enough time to avoid covering himself in his own mess. Given Sam's surprised, disgusted grunt, he may not be equally successful in missing those godawful shoes of his brother's. He groans and rolls back, a sharp, hot pain bleating in his head and the nausea feeling anything but quelled.

"Sorry, Sammy," he rasps, but that's what the nosey son of a bitch gets for always being _right there._

"No, that's – it's fine, man." Sam sounds like it's anything but fine, and like he might actually be sick himself. "I'm just gonna – " He gags, the big baby. Had nearly his brother's entire blood volume on himself the night before, and can't handle a little puke. And, really, it's not like Dean had much in the tank to throw up anyway. "Just gonna put these outside the room real quick. You just…just don't try to go anywhere, okay? Just…stay there." Like it's a legitimate concern, like Dean might decide to make a burrito run in the next few minutes.

His stomach roils once more at the thought, but Dean clamps down a steel-willed wall around the urge and wonders hazily, _Where the hell am I gonna go?_ as Sam exits stage left, momentarily brightening the room as the door swings open. _Jackass._

But he wants to move. Wants to get up and off of this lumpy bed, out of this motel room and town. Wants to find something to occupy his mind and keep his hands busy, whether that means digging into the guts of the Impala back at Bobby's or moseying into a dim little bar at the edge of some no-name town. At the moment, however, simply keeping his eyes open seems nearly beyond the scope of his capabilities, and he's pretty sure he's gonna be too stiff and sore to feel up to much moseying any time soon, because… _fuck._

Dean closes his eyes as the ceiling swirls over his head, and tries to decide which part of his horribly abused body hurt the _least._

There's an unmistakable itch and pull of blood drying a thick, tacky trail down the side of his face and neck and a hot pulse in his temple to match, a pound at the back of his skull where he'd struck the floor after falling. A steady throb in his side is distant for now but won't stay that way for long, is sure to start screaming nice and loud if he dare take more than a shallow breath, or as soon as his handsy and well-meaning little brother comes back. He _hurts_ and he's exhausted, in a couldn't-move-if-he-wanted-to sort of way.

His left pinky finger – he thinks – is what hurts the least, and then Sam is back, suddenly and with a vengeance, pressing a gauze pad to the bleeding side of Dean's head with enough pressure to send his eyes blowing open. He reflexively jerks away from the flare of pain but little brother is a persistent sort of bastard, holding Dean's heavy-feeling, pounding head steady with his free hand.

"Mm," he breathes, as the increased pain in his head turns the dial on the nausea back up to eleven. "Bitch."

"So you've said."

The pressure eases a bit and Dean cracks open an eyes, sees a blurry Sam hovering over his face, peeking under the gauze and looking pale, pinched. Like he's been through the fucking wringer, and he realizes that given how his own rush on the Oneiroi went, his little brother can't be feeling _that_ much better than he does. "Y'okay?"

"What?" Sam wearily shakes his head. "Just some bruises, dude. I'm fine."

"S'it dead?"

"Obviously." Sam winces, grabs Dean's hand and folds his lazy, uncooperative fingers over the gauze. "Here. Hold this a sec."

"Where you goin'?"

"Nowhere, man. Just gonna check you over, see what all we're dealing with." He's using a calm, deliberate voice he's been slowly developing over the past couple of years; the one that both pisses Dean off and lets him know he looks at least as bad as he feels. Enough so that he's scaring his brother, and the kid's already had more than enough to deal with.

"M'fine." Dean shifts, sending fiery lances of pain rocketing through his head and torso, so it's probably not as convincing as he'd like it to be.

"Dean – " Sam bites off. "Just…shut up." His hands still, and he gets that look he's prone to every now and then, like his brain is a dam overflowing with thoughts, and one's about to come loose and flood the entire county. Even so, it's with some degree of hesitance that he asks, "Why aren't you dead?"

_What the fuck, Sammy?_ But his brother's eyes are dinner plate-wide, and earnest, his face spooked-white and stress-lined. "Wasn't that bad a fall," Dean grits, though he can hear for himself how weak his own haggard tone is. It was three fucking stories of pinballing and ricocheting down and _through_ a narrow, dilapidated staircase until he crashed against a floor that was merely concrete covered in cheap, peeling tiling.

It was bad enough, and Sam's pale, wide-eyed face communicates as much without the necessity of the words.

Dean's not quite sure what Sam's looking for, and swallows roughly, does the only thing that comes naturally. "A hundred Tuesdays, and you didn't see that one comin'?"

His half-assed crack wrangles the desired chuff of almost-laughter from his brother, and Sam ducks his head, returns his attention to searching out wounds. "No, not that. Sorry." His tone is still off, as his insistent, searching fingers bring multiple bruises to Dean's attention.

He endures it all as silently as possible before a rib on his right side buckles under Sam's inspection. Dean yelps then and swats a hand, catches his brother across the chin.

Sam takes it like a champ, barely flinches. "Okay. That's broken."

Dean grits his teeth, sucking in a long, noisy breath that feels very much like a bad idea. "Thank you for that expert diagnosis, House."

"Well, that one was sort of obvious." For the perpetually-worried Sam, he's acting pretty nonchalant about jagged pieces of bone lying in all the wrong places. Or he's just gotten himself so worried about too many different things to give this individual issue the gravity he normally would. He sighs. "You've got some serious-looking bruises here, Dean."

"I fell through the freakin' stairs, Sam."

"Yeah, I heard. Does anything feel…off? Or hurt bad enough that you're gonna tell me about it?"

Dean does his brother a favor, and actually thinks on it a moment. With the steady, heavy thrum in his battered skull, the icy ragging of the broken rib Sam's already found, and all of the deep, aching bruises nestled between, he's got the pain spectrum pretty well covered. But as always, he can't see this situation being at all helped by digging into the specifics of his discomfort. That's best dealt with himself, on his own terms. "No."

"Okay." Sam pauses, unsatisfied, and then asks, "Anything hurt bad enough that you're _not_ gonna tell me?"

Dean rolls his eyes, sending a veritable _lightning bolt_ shooting through his skull, then scrunches his nose in mock offense. The motion tugs uncomfortably at the spot where the bloody wound at his temple has stuck to the gauze. "It's like you don't even trust me."

"No, it's like I know you." But it's clear that while Sam might not be inclined to agree, he hasn't found any evidence to launch an argument against Dean's self-assessment. "Dude, you're either really, like _stupidly_ lucky, or…"

"Or what?"

"Nothin'." Sam makes a disapproving sound as he once more peels the bloody bit of gauze away. He hisses, makes a face.

"How's it look?"

"You've had worse."

_Also been dead, Sammy. Pretty recently._ He bites down on the inside of his cheek and keeps the words from spilling out, because Sam sure as hell can't be expected to stop thinking about it if Dean starts talking about it. "So what's the problem?"

Sam narrows his eyes, worries his bottom lip. "Trying to decide if it needs stitches."

Sure feels like it does, feels like there's a fucking _canyon_ splitting his brow and his brains are pushing out through the gap, but Dean jerks his chin in the negative, swallowing thickly as his abused head and queasy gut protest the movement. "Bobby'll freak, think things got worse than they did. Just butterfly it." Thinking, _what's another scar?_ Thinking, this has been an outing that's left too many marks on the inside to worry over the ones on the outside.

Sam freezes, and a strange look passes over his features. It's quick, but Dean catches it, recognizes it. The brainy know-it-all is just now realizing something he should have figured out already. It's a look that's somehow both endearing and troubling, and dangerous either way.

"Sam?"

"What?" Sam's eyes widen, and he shakes his head like he's got water in his ears. "Oh, no, yeah. For sure." He pushes away from the bed, taking care not to jostle Dean too much.

Dean winces anyway – just not from the pain – as he stares blearily up at the ceiling and listens to his brother rummage through their rapidly dwindling first aid supplies. "Sam," he says again, forcing a volume into his voice that neither his head nor his chest appreciates.

"What? I'm agreeing with you." And if that in itself isn't strange enough, Sam is being scarily deliberate in his movements, now keeping his face completely out of Dean's eye line. An accomplishment that's pretty damn easy at the moment, especially when the kid sticks one of his massive palms on Dean's forehead and pins him in place. "Hold still." Like he was doing jumping jacks or some shit.

Dean absorbs the sting of antiseptic in the wound with a hiss. "Son of a bitch, Sam."

"Where are the angels now, huh?" Sam jokes as he places the butterfly bandages, only it doesn't sound like a joke. It sounds like a shaky plea for a distraction from the pain he's causing his brother, and whatever it is he's struggling to hide. Because that much is obvious.

Whether it's a joke or a plea or an honest-to-God, frustration-laden inquiry, Dean can't say he disagrees with his brother. He might have had his fair share of issues with the winged bastards, but there's a world of difference between Ace bandages and icepacks and _hey look, you're not DEAD anymore._

"All right, I'm gonna help you wrap up those ribs and then I'm, uh, going to give Bobby a call. Let him know we're okay. You know, mostly."

"I'm fine, Sam." Dean figures it'll sound a little more believable if he isn't acting like moving his head will cause him to pass out, and goes to back up his statement by pushing upright. He digs an elbow into the mattress and shoves himself into an angle that broken rib _really_ isn't happy with. But he locks it down, grits his teeth against the pain and makes a 'gimme' motion in the direction of the wide bandage in his brother's hands. "I can do it."

"You're not – " Sam bites down on his lip and turns away, shaking his head. "Yeah, whatever. Here." He chucks the wrap onto Dean's lap and steps swiftly away, scooping up his cell phone from the table. "I'm gonna go call Bobby."

The door to the motel room closes with an aggressive sort of silence, and Dean gets it then, he thinks. Works his jaw and avoids putting his eyes on the other, horribly bloodstained bed as he attempts to wrap up his own broken ribs, and he thinks he might just know exactly what's crawled up Sammy's ass.

Because every single time the kid steps out of a room – even to make a goddamned phone call – a pit opens up in his gut, and some dark, seriously wounded part of Dean fears he'll never again set eyes on his little brother.

Not alive, anyway.

*****************************************************************

There was a stretch of time, not too terribly long ago, in which full weeks would pass between hearing from the boys, and sometimes it was up to six months before they'd drop by his place. For information or ammo mostly, or one night's free rest if they were working a job close enough, and then right back on the road. Bobby by no means ever took any offense, because Dean's never before relied on a stationary home base to feel comforted and Sam gets visibly antsy when he's in one place for more than a few days.

They always made themselves at home when they dropped in – easy as pie after Dean broke the ice that first time, before John passed. Nowadays, with the notion of Hell a more literal than figurative one and the apocalypse looming on the horizon, it seems to come naturally to stick together. Bobby's not going any sort of significant distance without an assload of help, so the boys have developed a tendency to migrate back to Sioux Falls more frequently. Between jobs, to lick wounds, or whenever the idea of _home_ strikes one or both of them.

Even so, and true to the paranoid, nomadic way they'd been raised, everything they own is always packed and ready to be loaded into the car at a moment's notice.

Not this time.

As he's wheeled through his home in their absence – suffering horrible bouts of insomnia and actually _missing_ those two slobby sons of bitches – Bobby's found evidence suggesting another swift return. Dirty clothes waiting to be washed, knives left to be sharpened, a couple of old volumes in the library in which Sam's marked his place in the pages with bookmarks.

He's never been accused of enjoying the company of others, but by God if he ain't a little grateful to know Sam and Dean have every intention of making their way back once they've gotten this damned Oneiroi well and dealt with. And killing it once won't be nearly enough for Bobby's liking.

A shrill ring draws Bobby's eyes to the kitchen; not one of the phones on the bank, but the landline that's been jangling off its metaphorical hook the past few days. He spins his chair in the library and pushes toward the table, scoops up the handset and forgoes any sort of greeting. "Sam?"

_"Yeah, Bobby."_

"Thank God." It slips out, raw and rusty and unchecked.

_"Yeah."_

The hesitance in Sam's response leaves a weight of dread lying heavy in Bobby's gut. _Not again._ "You boys okay?"

_"Yeah. Well, mostly. It's, uh, it's dead."_

Bobby settles back in his chair, drawing a _creak_ of wheel and rub of leather, and splays a hand against his thigh. "Well, that's somethin'. I take it things didn't exactly go smooth?"

_"Do they ever?"_ Sam sighs, and spares them both the details. _"It's nothing major. We'll be fine, we're just gonna need a day or two. To, uh…"_

Sam says enough to say enough. These two only get so worked up about each other, and the kid's already watched his brother _die_ this week. "Take your time, boy. I ain't goin' anywhere." Bobby's lip curls in a wry, humorless grin. "Neither's the apocalypse."

There's a long stretch of silence. _"We got…lucky."_

_Luck's got nothin' to do with any of this._ "Take your time, boy," Bobby says again, gently. _I'll be waitin' to hear all about it._ Maybe take some of the weight out of Sam's tone.

_"Yeah. Thanks, Bobby."_ There's more Sam wants to say, a palpable hesitance and tension he can feel over the line. _"We'll be back soon."_

"I'll keep the light on." As always, he waits for the dial tone before disconnecting on his end; hasn't yet left one of those boys hanging, and Bobby has no intention of starting now. He drops the phone to his lap, exhales and drags a rough hand down his face, his belly and soul aching for a glass of whiskey.

The increased time he's been spending with Sam and Dean has built a new, sturdier house on the foundation of their relationship, and it's a double-edged sword. When they aren't unconsciously teaming up to drive him absolutely batshit, they make him laugh in a manner he never thought he'd again be capable of. But it's also served to increase his worry, of which he was already well-burdened. He's always cared for them as he would a pair of his own sons, but he's never before had to worry so constantly and openly about losing them.

They keep finding new and interesting ways to remind him of their old man, whether it's Sam's heavy, mopey footsteps or the way Dean's always searching out a drink and can't seem to be bothered to clean up a single damn crumb he's inevitably left on every flat surface in the house.

The way self-sacrifice comes to both of them, as easy as taking a breath.

He'd once told not-Sam, "don't try to con a conman," but it's one thing to put on airs as a bureau supervisor. It's something else entirely to look that boy's brother in the eye and know that something is horribly, perhaps irreparably, broken inside. To know Dean's _died_ , again.

Bobby is a man with a healthy respect for discretion, but he can't allow this to go on unacknowledged. Because each time the kid dies and comes back, it reinforces Dean's ass-backwards belief that his life is nothing more than a game piece. Or worse, a bargaining chip. Hell, he keeps on this way, he's not far from staring down the barrel of a loaded gun and daring, "Do it." Knowing it won't stick. Knowing better than anyone that the line between life and death is blurry and capable of manipulation.

It's this grim train of thought that has Bobby staring down at the receiver in his hand, once more feeling the gnaw of guilt for sending his boys out of his house – and for everything that's come from it – because he couldn't stand how _close_ they needed to be to him.

He calls them his boys but when they'd needed him to be a father, he'd as good as kicked them out. Because, as it turns out, he doesn't know how to let anyone in any more than either of those two jackasses do.

*****************************************************************

Sam strips the bloody bed, wads the soiled linens into a tight, tidy ball and crams it into the corner out of sight, but Dean doesn't need to _see_ the blood to smell it, or feel the phantom chill of its loss cutting through him.

He'd managed to wrap his ribs without blacking out for any serious amount of time, then spends an achy, blurry afternoon enjoying concussion-assisted vomiting bouts and his brother somehow managing to mother-hen him near to death from a safe distance across the room. In the morning, the room only spins once before righting itself and he makes it all the way to john without tripping over his own feet or smacking into the wall, so Dean figures he's as good as road-ready.

He's up and out of bed before his brother, wakes him by noisily throwing things into his bag. Sam blinks blearily at him from his spot on the floor, and Dean grins tightly.

"Morning, sunshine. We're leaving."

"You're white as a sheet," Sam argues once he's standing, but tiredly and knowing he's already gotten as much out of Dean as he's going to.

"I'm good," Dean returns. Elbow tucked in tightly against his broken rib.

"You _died,_ Dean."

_Pick a new party line. Jesus._ "I'm _fine_ , Sam." Wincing around the headache still hammering away in his skull, and possibly swaying. A little.

Sam rubs at the back of his neck and sighs. "All right. If you say so."

Within an hour they're loading the car, equally as slow but for different reasons. Dean gingerly shuts the trunk as Sam's slightly sharper eyes catch sight of a bright pink flyer stapled to a telephone pole at the edge of the motel's lot.

"Huh."

Dean does his best to make the elbow he sticks on the hood of the Impala look like a casual lean, instead of a necessary move to keep his ass off of the pavement. "What?"

Sam jerks his chin, corner of his mouth lifting. "Looks like, uh, _Pip_ the cat's gone missing."

Dean purses his lips, fists the keys and marvels at the swiftness of crazy cat ladies. Little fucker hadn't been missing more than a day. "I'm not that broken up about it."

"You and me, both." Sam turns back, narrowing his eyes at the car keys in Dean's hand. "Hey, gimme those."

"Sam – "

His attempt at argument is met with that immovable stone-face his brother inherited from Dad, and is pretty much stomped to death right then and there. It's also just the first building block in what becomes a tense and mostly quiet car ride that – okay, _fine_ – Dean spends mostly dozing against the window.

When they pull into Bobby's, his sore muscles are _screaming_ their displeasure at the way he's been folded on the bench seat for hours and that bitch rib is stabbing him. So Dean's got plenty of reasons to be moving slowly, but he's somehow beating his brother up the gravel drive. Sam's taking the walk at a snail's pace in a horribly obvious, avoiding-Dean's-eyes kind of way. In a shit's-gonna-hit-the-fan-as-soon-as-we-add-Bobby-to-the-equation kind of way.

In a _guilty_ way. It's practically wafting from his pores, and Dean's starting to reassess Sam's hesitance to leave Brookhaven when the job was over, because they both know he's played through worse than that dream demon did to him.

Dean narrows his eyes at the back of his brother's shaggy head. _What did you do, Sammy?_

For a brief, awful moment, he thinks he's got it all wrong. It wasn't angels that brought him back; Sammy made a deal. A thought that leaves him both somewhat relieved and very, very pissed. It wouldn't be that much of a stretch. They _did_ just make the acquaintance of a crossroads demon who seems extremely motivated to see them succeed in taking down Lucifer. The son of a bitch might have even cut Sam a good deal for the sake of getting Dean back in the game.

Before he can grab a handful of his brother's sleeve and have it out in right here the driveway, Sam shows remarkable instincts and self-preservation as he hops onto the porch and drags open the screened door with a _creak._

The words are still burning on the tip of Dean's tongue as he follows his brother into the house, picking up the pace as well as his wounded body will allow, and he looks immediately to turn the question on Bobby, wanting to demand _what did he do?_ and _did you know?_

The man's got a lot of acreage to his name, and it used to be you'd be hard-pressed to FIND the son of a bitch on his own property. Now, with limited mobility and the threat of the apocalypse looming over all of their heads like a storm cloud, he sticks closer to the phone bank, just like they've taken to sticking closer to him.

When Dean steps over the threshold after Sam, he's met by Bobby parked right there in full view of the front door, and the look in his eyes stops him in his tracks.

It's disappointed, and angry. _Wounded._

_Did you know?_ turns out to be an incredibly accurate, however irrelevant inquiry. Because given this look in Bobby's eyes, he knows all right. He _knows._

He shouldn't have been so adamant about skipping the stitches. Bobby knows EXACTLY how bad it got, and now Dean's gonna have a nice, ugly scar to remember the outing by.

Dean's shoulders drop, and his eyes shift to his brother.

Who knew this was coming, and was expecting some sort of fight, clearly. Sam's defenses are up, and once that happens there's no calling them down. "What was I supposed to do, Dean?" he all but shouts, whirling and throwing his arms wide. "I couldn't just NOT tell him."

_Yeah, you could, Sammy. Because I asked you to._ But Dean's sickeningly self-aware that they've evolved into a sort of lack of understanding in which each of them believes they know what's best for the other. Sammy changed while Dean was dead, in serious and permanent ways that he can't reverse just by _being_ here for the kid. This sort of thing is Dean's move, but Sammy's fully embraced it, and there's no telling where that might lead. Where it will _end._

Neither Dean nor Bobby speaks, but Sam keeps right on going, chest heaving and saying enough for all of them.

"You were _dead_ , Dean. And they brought you back. Do you have any idea what that means for us? Because I sure as hell don't, and that scares the crap out of me, man."

"Sammy…" Dean says, his voice a rough, exhausted rasp. It suddenly feels as though all of the air has been sucked out of the room, and he can't catch his breath, suffocating where he stands under twin gazes of intense scrutiny.

"No, Dean." Sam shakes his head. " _No._ You don't get to make that call. Not every time."

Dean clears his throat, puts some strength behind the words to compensate for the fact he's looking at Bobby while talking to his brother. "I'm not gonna do this right now." He backs away, elbowing the screened door back open, and slips out onto the porch. His boot catches on the threshold and he stumbles into the railing, grips the rough, rotting wood tightly. He quickly turns the hold into leverage to heave himself back toward the gravel drive.

"Dean – "

"Sam." The bark from Bobby raises the hairs on the back of Dean's neck, and does well to deter his brother from following him outside.

Dean shoves his hands into the pockets of his jeans and limps slowly through the yard, relishing the anonymity of a dark night and the biting chill in air as he replays the last few days and attempts to put his busted-up thoughts in lines as neat as these rows of busted-up clunkers. His breath puffs visibly as he exhales, rolling his head wearily on his neck.

Last few days? _Fuck_ , try the last few _weeks._

There's no question he's been plagued since the events in Carthage, by guilt, regret and _pain._ And the Oneiroi did well to make Dean aware of exactly all of the ways he'd screwed the pooch on that one. All of the things he'd lost.

_I just think maybe you lost a little more than I did in Carthage._

And maybe he did. Maybe it was the long-lost comfort of a mother he'd found in Ellen's company, and maybe it was that something that never quite took off with Jo, something he'd now never be able to define.

Maybe it was having to put two more tally marks in the column of people he's gotten killed.

Maybe it was the last bit of hope in an outcome that wasn't painted in the blood of everyone he's ever loved.

****************************************************************

Any stealth the aging hunter may have once possessed disappeared the day he landed in that damn chair. It creaks and groans as it rolls across the uneven hardwood, announcing his approach, and Bobby is less than graceful in navigating the narrow halls and doorways of his own home.

So Sam hears the man coming, and has ample time to construct a wall, mount a defense, or simply walk out of the room. Instead, he wordlessly takes one large step to the side, leaving Bobby plenty of room to park his wheelchair.

Bobby wheels to a jerky stop, wastes no time in gesturing to the screened back door through which Sam has been staring since he'd woken over an hour ago. "S'pretty cold out there." He means, _what's your dumbass brother doing outside in a t-shirt in the middle of winter?_

Sam acknowledges the actual words and the intent with the raise of an eyebrow. _S'pretty cold in here._ Always has been, in the winter months, unless a fire's going in the library. Comfort's not something that's top of mind for any of them, and home upkeep and maintenance has always been an area in which Bobby's spared expense, discounting the veritable _fortress_ in the basement.

Sam's eyes travel a course of the junkyard beyond the door, and he's struck with a sudden, intense surge of guilt. There hasn't been much money coming in since Bobby lost the use of his legs, and it should have occurred to them. He and Dean should have done more to repay the fact the man's door is always open. Could've easily gotten a couple of the clunkers running, and sold.

He gets caught up in his thoughts and takes too long to respond, and Bobby nudges him along.

"What's your brother doin'?"

"Avoiding me."

"Sam – "

Sam sighs. "No, Bobby, he is. It's okay." _He'd rather freeze his ass off surrounded by rusted-out cars than be in the same room as me._

Bobby audibly works his jaw, scrapes a fingernail along the arm of his chair. "He sleep any?"

"Since we got back?" It's been two days now, and Sam's pretty sure he knows the answer. But he lifts a shoulder and puts on a show at considering for Bobby's sake. "No, I don't think so."

"And you?"

"Yeah, a little." He thinks so, anyway. After the week they've had, sleep isn't anything he's looking to welcome with wide open arms, but he's certainly managed to clock more hours than Dean. It's been that way for a while now, though.

He catches Bobby nodding in his periphery, a heavy and resigned motion. "This is my fault."

Sam's got good instincts, saw something like this coming. "It's not."

Bobby drapes limp hands over the ends of his wheelchair arms. "I good as pushed you boys out the door after that hunt."

Sam shakes his head firmly, meaning everything he's about to say. "No, you were right. I mean, what are we supposed to do? Lock ourselves in the panic room and wait for the world to end?" He crosses his arms, squints out into the yard. "No, it was…"

_It was WHAT, Sam?_ The right thing? What he needed?

It wasn't GOOD, that's for damn sure. This job exposed vulnerabilities in his brother, the kind Dean never acknowledges in himself until it's too late. He's never been the sort of guy to say, _maybe I should sit this one out, fellas_ ; he's the guy who limps bloody onto the field convinced he's going to score the game-winning goal, and gets PILEDRIVED.

"It was good to get out of the house," Sam finishes lamely. He can feel the intensity, the scrutiny in Bobby's gaze without meeting his eyes.

"You know," Bobby says, after a moment, "there are times, Sam, when I think your brother's the toughest son of a bitch I've ever known. And then there are times that I just don't know how much fight he could possibly have left in him."

"Enough," Sam says hoarsely.

"You sure about that?"

"Yeah." He nods. "I am." He has to be. There are more and more days now, when knowing that Dean is right by his side in this fight is pretty much the only thing keeping Sam going.

_Not like it matters._

Dean's been hurting in so many ways, and it was just a slip – that's all. Sam can't afford to entertain the possibility his brother may have meant it, that his muttered words were any indication that he's not _in_ this fight. Besides, Dean showed his hand with the dream root, because he was _meant_ to die there, and he didn't.

Snap his neck, cave in his skull, puncture a lung or some other vital organ and bleed out internally before Sam could get him to help. That's what always happened in Broward, every single damn time, and the only thing that makes sense is that Dean changed it, softened the blow of his horrific fall or otherwise protected himself.

It's been a rough couple of weeks all around, and if they'd failed in that run on Lucifer, the plan had been to _die_ trying. They weren't poking the bear with a stick; they were poking it with a stick of _dynamite_ , with no intention of letting go before the boom. Dean's certainly taken to acting like he couldn't care less about his own wellbeing, but he _wants_ to live. To stay by Sam's side or stick it to the angels who've made it very clear he's on their payroll to do anything but. Against all outward appearances to the contrary and in spite of those muttered words, he's not out of the game; not entirely, and not just yet. And even if his dumbass big brother only wants to keep breathing for the sake of keeping Sam out of the line of fire, he'll take it.

He can work with that. He can _reward_ that.

Sam has the man's attention, and Dean's nowhere within earshot. He swallows roughly, rocks back a step and ticks his eyes down to an extremely pensive and waiting Bobby. "This isn't gonna end well."

"Sam?" Like Bobby doesn't know exactly what he's talking about. Like he could possibly be talking about _anything_ else.

"We're not all gonna make it." He's never been surer of anything in his life, a horrible pit of _knowing_ in his gut. It's too big – the _apocalypse?_ Sacrifices are going to have to be made, and Sam's already watched his brother sacrifice so damn much.

A rough sigh, a scratch of calloused palm across whiskers. "No, I know," Bobby says quietly, maybe terrified that he already knows what Sam's going to say.

Sam's lost a lot, sure, but he's made his fair share of mistakes, too. Big ones. This entire…Lucifer, the apocalypse – that's on _him._ And he'll be damned if he has to watch his brother continue to throw himself onto the fire, continue to sacrifice _everything_ , for him.

Sam nods, straightens his spine and speaks with resignation. "If it comes down to him or me? You know what to do." He turns, tilts his head to meet the man's squinted eyes. "Don't miss."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All right. Hey there. So, as I (think I) said in Chapter 1, this story was conceived by/built upon a stack of prompts that were given me after being bested in a battle of words and time almost a year ago. The prompts were:
> 
> 1\. Sam and Dean
> 
> 2\. post "Abandon All Hope"
> 
> 3\. the guys are forced to stay awake for 120 hours for supernatural reasons*
> 
> 4\. a citywide blackout
> 
> 5\. a monster playing deadly games (NOT to teach a lesson)
> 
> 6\. symptoms of staying awake*
> 
> 7\. and I quote - "epic levels of crankiness"
> 
> 8\. fire
> 
> 9\. snickerdoodle cookies
> 
> 10\. sea poison tree
> 
> 11\. Dean knowing something that catches Sam off-guard
> 
> I've *'ed the prompts that didn't quite happen as planned. Sometimes you write a story, and sometimes a story writes itself. This one - with a push from my muse's muse to do one major thing I'd made the mistake of saying that I couldn't ever see myself doing (killing one of the boys) - started to take on a mind of its own while I was working on it. This was originally meant to be a story focused on sleep deprivation, and was going to parallel different sorts of loss, but things didn't end up that way, which I think is both the challenge and the beauty of a WIP story. I have every intention of following through on the prompt, and writing that story. It just didn't end up being THIS story.


End file.
